


Silhouettes

by Inky_Pens



Category: Red Queen Series - Victoria Aveyard
Genre: F/M, Mare POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:54:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 92,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21930037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inky_Pens/pseuds/Inky_Pens
Summary: He was dead. He fell before her eyes, and she saw his, memorized them with conscious effort. How could she have fathomed it was the last time she would ever see them? His warm irises receded from blown pupils, flickered in pain only briefly, but it was the confusion that was seared in the forefront of her memory. It would haunt her dreams. Did he know it was the end? Was he frightened?Even with eyes open, she saw him watching her as he always had. She blinked and he did, too. How desperately she wished he were real."Please leave," she whispered to his too-close and too-real face. If the others heard her talking to herself, they would only resume their smothering. If tears weren't blurring her vision, she may have noticed his forehead was less smooth, his skin rougher and the hint of stubble coming in. She might have questioned his weariness."I can't," he whispered back. "Not until you change this."She whimpered then, a pitiful sound at the back of her throat. Her nose burned with the threat of more tears.When he reached out to stroke her cheek, she almost screamed at the heat of his fingers. In all the stories she had read, ghosts were meant to be cold."Shade?"
Relationships: Mare Barrow/Tiberias "Cal" Calore VII
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is a completed repost of an older work I had up on ff.net. I'm migrating it over here, so if you're from that fandom and have read this before--hello again! If you're coming across this with fresh eyes, welcome and enjoy!
> 
> This is primarily in Mare's POV, with a few intermissions from Cal. Cal's chapters are bolded.
> 
> I currently write for TFOTA and Alex Stern/Ninth House fandoms. You can also find me on twitter, @inkypensfiction.

"We need to go, Mare," Cal whispers into my ear. I know the lightning still crackling over my skin is a painful sting to him, but he leans in anyway. "We cannot stay here."

He is right, of course. Elara's fried corpse lies a dozen feet away, and it's only a matter of time before news of Corros reaches Archeon, and Maven. I have yet to see her dead, but then I haven't moved from this place next to Shade since I collapsed by his body. It feels longer, but only seconds passed from when his eyes locked with mine for the very last time to when I drew lightning from the sky and unleashed it on the smug approaching Elara. She left one thought in my head, the farthest she could get before everything went white. To call it rage would be too soft, too understated. I cooked her alive in her own skin, and _I savored_ it. As hot tears sizzled off my cheeks in the current of electricity, I burned the queen into a grotesque carcass until my body felt empty, void of anything but grief. I don't know who took care of Ptolemus, but whatever death he was given was generous, and I'm momentarily enraged that I could not watch him fry him in his glorified tin can armor. I deeply hope it was Cal who finished the deed. After all, it was Cal who showed Ptolemus mercy in the Bowl of Bones, and that mercy has cost me everything.

I reach my hand a few inches ahead of me until it grabs hold of the needle still emerging from Shade's heart. I vaguely hear Kilorn's whispered croak behind me. "Mare, don't—"

But I've already slid the blade in a nauseating squelch, and with shaky fingers, I close my grasp on it. I scream as l pull the last of the lightning in my body into my hand, and the guttural, sharp sound that passes my lips permeates the silence and draws the attention of the survivors. And though I know this is not something I can destroy on my own, I exhaust myself trying anyway. Again and again, in total vain. My screams match the effort and turn into sobs when I have nothing left. _I have nothing._

Just then, Cal takes my hand and laces his fingers between mine, urging me to let the offensive metal drop. He melts it instantly, and my resounding silence has me cold. Shade lies next to me peacefully. The bloodstain over his heart doesn't look nearly as menacing without its maker protruding from it. He might as well be pretending like he's always done to avoid conversation and eavesdrop on our unsuspecting brothers. But I know better, and I catch the thought before it foolishly leaves my throat. Just then, Farley comes barreling for us. I don't see her as I stare at Shade's unassuming, soft expression. I can't even say I hear her as she frantically shouts for answers that I don't have. But when she throws her body over his and obstructs him from my view, Cal lift me into his arms, cradling me in his warm embrace as he walks back toward the Blackrun. _Not the Blackrun_ , I realize offhandedly, but something larger. Cal sets me down in his seat and presses his lips to the top of my head for a brief moment. If I had any feeling left in me right now, I would've shattered at the gesture. He makes his way back toward the ramp to gather the others. We need to leave here, and ever the soldier, Cal must maneuver everyone into place.

"Bring her body," I bite out. Even the screams and sobs cannot deter my resolve. "I want it up here with us, uncovered." A plan starts forming in my head as the internal jumble recedes so _the lightning girl_ can take its place. The emptiness of Shade's death threatens to consume me, so I run from it, to a cold that's become familiar to me. I plan for what we do next, what we show this world I can do, what we show Maven how capable I am of destroying.

Cal looks back with eyes of sadness and pity, _for me_ , and though I can also see a flicker of hesitation, he nods at my directive. As I wait for Cal to get things in motion, my eyes close on their own accord, too weighted by exhaustion to keep me awake.  
-

"Nap time already?" The voice is soothing and familiar, playful and light, and utterly wrong. I mumble a vulgar response anyway.

Shade laughs. "Can't stay here forever, Calamity Jane."

One eye pops up at the reference. "What?" Through the grogginess, the overwhelming exhaustion, I have barely registered my brother is standing aside me.

"It's in one of Julian's ancient books. Old World lady was something else. He'll tell you about her one day."

I scoff. I forgot the rescue of Julian means the resurgence of history lessons. I wish I could've seen Shade and Julian bantering together; both have quick wits, though Julian's far better read than Shade was. Shade didn't have the access to literature that Julian does, but Shade would have loved listening to Julian's stories. I bolt upright with wide eyes and my insides lodged in my throat. Shade would not have had any time to talk history lessons with Julian, and as far as I knew, Julian had no books on him in his cell. What is Shade talking about? _Why is Shade here_? "This is a dream," I realize as both sadness and relief flood me.

Shade just smiles, though the corners of it don't reach high enough to mean anything. He looks…apologetic. "I'm here, Mare."

Fresh tears burn my eyes. How badly I wish that were true. "You're not," I sigh, blinking away the stinging heat pooling at my lashes. "You're…dead," I swallow, "and this is a dream. "And you're right, I can't stay here forever." I shake my head back and forth, willing myself to wake up.

Shade nudges my shoulder with his side. From his vantage point, he looms over me. Strong, steady, if not more aged since I last saw him not more than a half hour ago. "It's not a dream. I'm here, but only you can know this. You mustn't tell the others."

The sound of boots approaching has Shade lean down to meet me eye-level; the sound stops suddenly mid-step. "Mare, listen, do not return to Tuck. The plan you have in your head, you can't go through with it. Go back to Notch. Stay there. I'll come back to you."

"I-" How did he know where I was going? I only barely just considered the idea before Cal walked out.

In an uncharacteristic move, Shade puts his hands on either side of my face and kisses the top of my head. It's warm and affectionate, and it's real as anything I've ever felt. "I've missed you like this," he whispers into my hair.

And then he pops out of sight.  
-

The flight back to Notch is silent. Kilorn gives me space, afraid where my head is right now, I think. Cal gives me space for a different reason—he's still angry with me for killing those Silver guards back at Corros. I watch over Elara's body in a way that makes Kilorn uncomfortable. I can tell he'd prefer I cover her, like Farley has covered Shade, but I refuse. As though Elara could open her eyes any minute, I keep watch of her. Cal doesn't seem to care; bodies don't make him squeamish after all he's seen, and he couldn't care less about Elara's dignity.

Midway to Notch, a fight erupts between Farley and I. It takes Cal harshly pulling at me and Kilorn grabbing hold of Farley to separate us, and Cal has to drag me into the cockpit to yell some sense into me. I don't know what to make of seeing Shade earlier, and though he felt as real as the fuming Cal standing defiantly in front of me right now, I force myself into the reality that whatever it was, it wasn't real. A figment of grief, a lucid dream, but not Shade. He's not coming back, he's no longer my steadfast rock, no matter how much I want him here to keep the emptiness from closing in on me.

Cal is a mix between anguished and angry. My previous assumption was correct: he hates me for killing those Silvers who begged for their lives. What about Shade? He didn't even have the chance to beg. And _mercy_ , I spit in my own head, is what led to Shade's death. But I don't tell Cal this; I don't put that burden on him despite his burdening me with guilt and the cold I long to escape. And while Cal is angry with the death of the Silvers, I realize that's the tip of the iceberg. What lies beneath is the resentment toward my unresolved feelings for the blue-eyed boy who kissed me on a boat. I don't have the explanations he wants to hear; I haven't sat with my feelings long enough to understand them. Maybe Cal deserves more, but I owe him nothing. A firestorm who does not know where he belongs or what he wants, who would wish things to be the way they used to be—even at the cost of Reds and newbloods _At the cost of me_ , I think. I want to tell him my plan for Tuck and the media storm I planned on broadcasting, thus solidifying my allegiance with the Scarlet Guard. I want to push back against Cal's accusations by leading us back to Tuck with the upper hand, giving all the rescued a home, even if temporary. I want to revert into Mareena, the cold, calculating, demanding Silver that Lady Blonos trained me to be, but dream Shade's earlier words have me biting my tongue. I cannot revert to the cold persona I use as my only shield against the conflicting emotions swirling in me. In that moment, I understand what Mareena is to me, why I need her as much as I need Mare, and why it is the two of them that make the _little lightning queen_.

I have nothing left to say to Cal, and if I stay here with a just a few feet separating us, I'm afraid I'll spill everything. Then he'll really think I'm crazy. So I angrily pull my arm from his grasp, wincing in the process, and turn on my heel back Elara's body. I must really look my age right now, petulantly storming off rather than facing things head-on, but he does not follow me and I do not return to him for the remainder of the flight.

I don't know what has me trusting dream-Shade; maybe it's exhaustion, or grief. I look over at his covered body, where Farley hovers and refuses to make eye contact with me. I resist the urge to lift the sheet and make sure he is still under there, reminding myself that I put him under that sheet. I closed his eyes. I pulled the blade from his heart. Whatever my dream of Shade has led me to, I have a strange feeling at the depth of my soul that it is for the best.


	2. Chapter 2

I stay on the plane while everyone files out, disbursing themselves around Notch is my guess. I stall with purpose, because as much as I want the comfort I have come to know at Notch, I'm not sure what will be expected of me once I leave this jet. So I busy myself with rudimentary tasks when Cal is the last to leave the ship. He passes by without stopping—I don't even feel his eyes on me for so much as a quick glance. He does not ask what I'm doing, or why I cannot join the rest. Everyone is giving me space, _silence_ , and it is a luxury I haven't felt in so long that I relish the feeling. I am only vaguely aware there is Elara's corpse marring my otherwise serene peace. I chuckle aloud. Of all the places to find peace and quiet, it isn't by the river in Stilts, or at the cusp of the forest under dark clouds at the edge of Notch. Instead I find it in an empty cargo jet with the mangled body of the queen I killed.

After a while, I hear a quiet voice softly invading my space. Julian's feet shuffle to me, and in the midday sun, I can see how worn down the imprisonment and Elara's torture has made him.

I stare at him blankly, having not heard him on his approach.

He sits next to me on the floor. "I said I did not think I would find you making friends with the queen of all people."

"The dead queen," I remind him, and myself. "I haven't decided what to do with her body yet, so I was just weighing my options."

"You were hiding."

"I-" But my stammer is a giveaway. "I was not." The weak argument does not deter Julian. He looks at me in a way an instructor would his star pupil, imploring them to bring their best to the discussion. But my best is not enough, if it ever was. I sigh and allow a small truth to escape. It's Julian, after all, and I cannot bring it in me to distrust him completely. "I just wanted to sit in the silence for a little while."

He nods sagely. "Be careful, Mare. Too much silence can give way to your darkest thoughts, your deepest fears. It does no good to sit and fester, like Elara here." Julian looks at her for a moment, then turns back to me. "She cannot stay on this jet to rot and neither can you. What you've seen, Mare. What you've done…It's the beginning of a very winding road. If you are not careful, you may go astray."

The corners of my mouth twitch, betraying the smile I'm suppressing. He means this to be a teaching moment, but it feels so familiar that it aches. The weight of all that has changed from my time in Julian's classroom has started to catch up to me, and I feel it settling into my tired muscles, my sore joints, my too-fast heartbeat, my too-cluttered mind. It is all I know to run from myself. A monster is what Cal insinuated I was becoming, and Julian is echoing his nephew.

I push myself up from the floor and roll my shoulders and neck…buying time. "Julian," I shut my eyes to block out the headache forming between then, "I'm not up for a lecture. Cal's already yelled at me, and I'm sure there are more waiting to do the same back at the camp. And what's more—I don't know what any of them want from me. I am left to make the hard decisions. Where we go, who we take. Whose lives are put in danger because I decide we need them for a mission. You left me a list of names, Julian, and I am supposed to save them. Everyone looks to me for where we go next, but I have no idea how to lead these people, let alone how to save them." _I can't even save myself._ My breath heaves in my chest, stifling a cry. "You gave me this weight and I must carry it, but not without falling. And I can't. Maven is always a step ahead, waiting for me, waiting to kill me." _No,_ I think, _worse than that. Waiting to capture you. Take you back to gilded imprisonment._ "And the one person in all of this who I could believe in, who should have never been here to begin with, is now gone from my world. _Again_."

Julian tips his head, listening patiently and allowing me to get this off my chest. This doesn't even scratch the surface, and I cannot bear to let him into the darkness and cold beneath my skin. I crave Cal's warmth—not just the physical flush that stops my shivers in our cot, but the heat I feel when he is with me; a flush of a different kind. The one that is powerful and subdued all the same. It draws me to him, pulls me into his world, and it keeps the cold from suffocating me; it keeps the growing darkness from erasing both parts of me, Mare and Mareena, that I am desperately trying to hold onto.

"I'm sinking here, Julian. In the enormous task you've given me, I'm losing myself." The last few words come out as a ragged whisper. "But if I stop, I lose everyone else. Maybe I lose them anyway." I slide my back along the wall of the jet opposite Julian and push my head into my bent knees. The revelations have made me nauseated with vulnerability. Even breathing feels too much.

Julian's look is somber, and guilty. The light in his eyes, normally strong and vibrant, flickered in Corros, but now it almost darkens completely. "I've made you a martyr." I remember Cal's earlier words, though when Cal said it, he meant it disparagingly. A way of showing me how detached I had become from everyone else who was fighting, and dying, alongside me.

"I would have needed to fight eventually," I counter. "At least now I have a just cause. We all do."

"One you can believe in? One worth dying for?"

My answer comes without hesitation. "To save people like me?" _To save myself?_ "With all my heart."

Julian is up and walking toward me, albeit slower than his usual spry self. He extends his arm, open-handed, and I take it. In a move that completely disarms me, Julian pulls me in to hug me in a paternal embrace that makes my heart seize in panic. In a way, saving Julian was a modicum of redemption for myself. It is one bright spot in my accumulating list of wrongdoings. It gives me hope that I'm not completely damned like Cal thinks.

"I'm surprised Cal let you come here alone," I muse. We make our way towards the ramp to exit the jet. I hold onto Julian and notice he's slowed down dramatically. Corros robbed him of strength. Who knows what else it has done to him.

"I needn't go to Cal for permission, but I brought company with me on my walk for fresh air and stiff muscles," he winks. Outside the jet are Sara and a man I don't recognize. He too is older, with white hair and a soft expression. He offers his hand, which I take by way of introduction. He's freezing cold. A Shiver.

"Gelus, this is Mare," Julian says with the slightest twinge of pride. He has spoken about me before. I can tell by the comfortable inflections in his voice. Gelus exchanges stern pleasantries, which are almost as frosty as his ability. Then I realize why Julian has brought him. Always a step ahead, even though he only just left a prison this morning.

"You're going to freeze her body?" I ask Julian.

He nods. "It will preserve her until you decide what to do."

It's brilliant idea of course, but a small part of me would rather she decay and rot into nothing. Or maybe that Cal would burn her to cinders. I have half a mind to take her head and put it on display for Maven and all of the Silver kingdom to see. I was so close to doing just that before dream-Shade urged me to change plans. I guess I should ask Cal what he wants to do with her. She is major factor in why he is here with us, after all. Her and me, of course. I can never forget that, and though he hasn't explicitly blamed me, the truth of it still looms.

Julian and Gelus head back in to freeze the queen, leaving me with Sara in awkward silence. Only it isn't awkward at all. Without the gruesome sight of Elara in front of me, I feel oddly relieved. Worn and weary, but with Elara out of the way, I never had to worry about her controlling me, or Cal, ever again. She cannot get to any of us any longer. Now all we have to face is Maven, though the hairs on my arm start to tingle in terror at the thought of Maven when he discovers Elara was killed at my hand. Wordlessly, Sara grabs my hand as squeezes gently. Such a gentle sign of comfort that soothes my nerves for the time being. I forget she suffered under Elara's terror as well and wish I could ask her how she is doing in all of this. She lost her best friend, her own voice, and in a way, her future with Julian. I squeeze back. I wish it were more, but nowadays it's all I can manage.


	3. Chapter 3

When Julian and Gelus return, we start to make our way back to the Notch. The walk is slow, made slower by a tired trio of Silvers, but I make no move to hurry them along. Truth be told, I want to prolong going back to the noise and stares that await me. By the time we arrive, dusk has settled over the hills and the last of the day is streaked with vibrant burnt orange and crimson. I nod toward the entrance. "Go on, I'll be along in a moment."

I take a series of deep breaths—in through the nose, out through the mouth, in the same way Cal taught me. I keep seeing Shade's death on replay. I push against the memory, but next comes Elara twitching and screaming violently against my lightning. After that comes Maven and his hand around my throat while the clicker ticks maddeningly in my head. I shake my head against the last one and remind myself of where I am and who I'm with.

"Bug in your hair?"

I freeze, straightening up and turning to Kilorn. "Yeah, maybe," I lie. I see the bowl of stew in his hand. I nod to it. "I'm not hungry."

"Good thing this isn't for you then." He shoves a spoonful in his mouth and wipes whatever missed with the back of his hand. He looks out at my view, has now darkened enough to just almost see the stars.

"About earlier…" I start, but Kilorn holds up a hand. "Kilorn, I—"

"No need, Mare. We're good." I haven't the energy to push, so I don't. "So what happens next?"

I shrug; no plan in my head has formulated without reaching a wall. Without Shade, it will be near impossible to guarantee our safe passages and narrow escapes. Kilorn filled me in on the others we lost back at Corros; I feel a sharp stab of guilt at having not asked earlier. The newbloods will need training—if they even decide to stay. Then there are the rescued Silvers. How long will they want to stay in a compound of limited means, and how long until any one of them betrays us to Maven? Then there is the death march taking place at The Choke, where five thousand Red child-soldiers have their fates sealed. And we still have a long list of newbloods that we need to save before Maven captures them. Without his mother there to control and experiment on them, Maven is likely to exterminate them altogether. I am overwhelmed by what all has to be done and what little impact we have made so far. "I think we will have to go to Tuck Island eventually."

"Uh, for a suicide mission?" The sarcasm covers his genuine distress.

"The survivors need somewhere to go. We cannot hold everyone here. It's too dangerous. And like it or not, the Scarlet Guard offers more protection than we can provide. We give our people a choice; we give Colonel Farley none."

"What makes you think he'll go for your clearly flexible and generous deal?"

"Easy. I'll give him the Queen."

Kilorn is called back in to help Nanny and Ava with the children. He makes a good brother figure to these frightened kids. They trust him, and he treats them like they aren't freaks with a big secret. I stay out for a little bit longer, until lanterns dim inside signaling bedtime for the younger ones. I keep making excuses to stay out here, but the winter chill is harsh and unforgiving against my torn remnants of a suit. I realize I would rather face a room of confused and vengeful former prisoners than Cal. I wonder if the bedchamber that was mine only a few nights before moving in with Cal is still open. It isn't that I want to hide from him, but the churning in my stomach at possible rejection. What if Cal no longer wants anything to do with me beyond giving him flight orders and sending him newbloods for training? How could he want to sleep next to me again, knowing that I have spent nights in the same bed poring over letters from his brother—for reasons I can't even articulate? How do I face the night with everything closing in on me when Cal isn't there to keep it away? I'm still working out the answers when I settle onto the grass and rest my head on my knees. I must have fallen asleep because suddenly I am being lifted into warm arms against a solid chest, I would know this feeling anywhere. I'm shivering harshly now, teeth chattering in the cold autumn evening.

"I di-didn't s-see Sshhade," I mumble in a hushed whisper. I hoped to see him again in a dream, but nothing came.

Cal tucks me in closer to his chest; his only response. When he walks us into our room, he sets me down on my feet and grabs a change of clothes for me. The chill is deep-set into my bones, and I wonder how long I was out there before Cal found me. I take them with shaking hands and stumble forward as I head out of the room to change. Cal catches me by the arm and wraps his arms around me, my back to his chest, emitting enough heat to warm me down to my core. That warmth also burns differently low in my belly, and I relish in it for just a moment. But a moment turns into time that I've lost track of along with the rest of my logic. The back of my head lands on his shoulder and Cal's hands move to my sides, running long, soothing strokes from my hips to just above my ribs. He does this for some time, and in the heat of it all, I begin offering the semblance of an explanation he deserves.

"I keep those letters as a reminder. I keep the scar as a reminder. Not…" I try to coax the words carefully from my mouth, "Not because I still want him, and not because I love him still. I loved who I thought he was, who I thought he could be for me, for all of us. I thought he would take me out of imprisonment and remove the death sentence that hung over my head for what's in of me." I pause for a shaky breath. I often find myself vulnerable with Cal, but it never gets any easier. "I thought he saw past the _little lightning girl_ , and when he kissed me, I thought it was because he wanted _me_."

Cal's hands have stopped at my sides. His fingers curl as if to make a fist, but he forces himself to relax. What's more, he controls the fire that I know rages in him. "You were just a pawn," he grits out.

"I know," I answer defensively. I don't appreciate the reminder, though it seems I need to hear it constantly. "I see that now. Every move Maven made was a means to an end. He wanted the throne all along, and he used me to get him there. He used my feelings for you to…" My cheeks flush with embarrassment and shame at the memory. Maven may have played on my feelings for Cal, but I was the one who stood before the king to-be asking him to choose me while knowing the betrayal lurking behind my words. Would things have been different if Cal had chosen me? But then, Maven knew he wouldn't. I had hoped recklessly that Cal would have followed me anywhere, and Maven toyed with this. I wonder if it irritated Maven to know where my heart lied. I wonder if he watched with glee when Cal rejected me.

I take a deep breath as tears well into my eyes. "So I read those letters as punishment for the foolish decisions I made out of what I thought was love. I read them every night, remembering every dead body I took them from, remembering how stupid I was to believe the shadow who felt like he never belonged, in a place where I could never belong. He played me perfectly, and I let him. The brands, the letters, they remind me of how much I have cost us." Tears stream over my cheeks without breaking, though that's exactly what I'm doing inside. "I wish I could let go. I really do."

My head falls forward, chin to chest, as I break down. And like a dam let open, I cry over Maven, over Cal, over Shade, and Farley. I cry for the innocent life Kilorn would have never known, even if I had never stolen from a prince. I cry for Gisa and the exquisite talent I broke. I cry for the scared newbloods, the dead ones, and the ones that I will never get to in time. Until I'm sobbing so hard my knees buckle, but Cal's grip holds me tightly to him. He turns me around, and only then do I realize his chest is bare as I'm crying against the sinewy firm muscles that feel taut underneath my fingertips.

I trace Cal's battle scars reverently; the same way he traces mine. Slowly I feel myself calming. The tears have stopped, my breathing changes from harsh gasps to hiccups, and the tension start ebbing away from my sore body. I'm unbelievably tired, but I could stand with Cal for what feels like an eternity. Cal lifts my chin with a finger and looks at me in a way that abruptly stops my hiccups, stops my breathing altogether. His apology, his confession—I see it all in his glowing copper-tinged eyes. For a moment, all of the bitterness between us simmers away, and with it, the complications of whatever it is we are doing together. If I could stop time, I would hold us in this moment. When everything falls apart, this is the memory I want to keep with me.

He kisses me firmly on the mouth and just hold us there for another moment with his lips on mine. Because I'm weak, because I'm tired, or because I damn well want to, I coax my tongue to the seam of his lips to give him my intention. He responds in kind, pushing his tongue against mine, because for whatever reasons that are his own, he wants this as much as I do. We stand in the middle of our room kissing one another for dear life, until he lifts me off my feet just enough for me to put my legs around his waist.

 _We should stop. We have to stop._ But I don't listen to reasoning. Instead, I push my body firmly against his. My arms elbows rest on his shoulders, my hands smooth into his hair as my fingers weave between soft locks. My whole body is alive in such a way that feels like lightning and power and energy, but really it is so much deeper. It's primal and instinctual. My body aches for his in a way that has completely disarmed me.

He shifts against me and that makes me cry out, but I have the good sense to stifle myself. It has the adverse effect on Cal, and he growls against my jawline, where his mouth had moved to make way for much-needed oxygen. He moves again and this time it's a sound unlike I've ever heard from myself. I would be embarrassed if I had any idea what we were doing. Cal grits his teeth and pants roughly against my lips, but he doesn't continue. When I open my eyes to see his forehand screwed into a mash of lines and twitching muscles, I realize I must have shocked him. Literally. Sure enough, as I calm down my body, getting back to a regular breathing pattern and loosening my grip, I notice my fingers are tingling.

I mumble a curse before I can help myself. "Cal, I'm sorry. I don't realize—I didn't know that would…I wasn't paying—"

He kisses me again, this time only briefly. "It's okay. We probably needed that."

I wonder if he regrets this, if he feels guilty for having gone farther than we have before. But he started it! Or was it me, when I put my legs around him? Did I horribly misread all of this?

He chuckles and presses his nose to mine. This is affection, and it's warm and strange and absolutely wonderful, but it also unnerves me. "Mare, don't overthink it." But how can I not? This shift between us could lead to something more, or it could undermine everything we have done to protect ourselves. Yet we keep coming back to each other. We aren't inseparable, but we do nothing to separate ourselves. Even when we despise one another, we come back here. "Mare…"

I look at him, really look at him. From this vantage point I meet him at eye-level for the first time ever. There is a calm about him that radiates through beautiful flickering eyes and through me, and as such, I relax against him. "What you said earlier, Cal, about me not loving anyone?"

He opens his mouth, likely to amend his harsh words from earlier, but then he shakes his head slowly. Meaningfully. "I know," he whispers.

Does he know I love him? Or does he know why I can't bring myself to commit to that feeling?

I don't get the answer tonight. Cal sets me down on my feet and I go to change while Cal leaves the room briefly. Really, I just walk to the other side of our small shared space and prepare to get into the t-shirt, his, and cotton shorts, mine, that he grabbed for me. He dims the flame into the the size you would find on a match, a tiny thing that gives him no view of me. It is so dark that I don't notice he is right behind me until I feel him. I'm standing completely bare, and the close proximity, even though I can't see, makes me nervous and tremble.

"Cal?" I call out I to the darkness but my only answer is a quiet, "Here. Reach out and give me your hand."

I do as I'm told and feel a wet, warm cloth press into my palm. I get his meaning. I'm covered in dried blood, grime, and the general residue of this miserable day. Though I cleaned myself up earlier as best I could, this offers some additional solace. I run the cloth up my arm, squeeze it across my collarbones, and the sound of water rivulets is the only noise that breaks the silence. I swallow hard when I move the cloth over my chest, knowing Cal is standing a foot in front of me. It's a heady feeling having so close when I'm naked in front of him, but we're in complete darkness. The tiny flame flickering in the center of the room may as well be one of those fireflies I've seen over the river. It provide no visibility, which I'm grateful for when I turn around and dress myself. My heart hammers in my chest, and I know, I just know he can hear it. How could he not? I hear his breath hitch as I brush against him when I turn, but he doesn't move.

"Done," I whisper.

Cal reaches for me and his fingertips find my wrist, pulling me forward into him. His knuckles trace the scars on the back of my neck by memory now; he's done this so many times that it becomes a part of our nighttime ritual as we lie in bed together. He, touching me comfortingly, and I gently scratching the lines on his palm. I battle my own mind, and he hides his. We're in synch but not symmetry. We know each other's' pains and fears, but we let each other suffer quietly, hoping our presence is enough to keep the ghosts at bay. Until now, it was. But everything has changed today, tonight, and I'm not sure if it's for better or worse.


	4. Chapter 4

I wake a few times in the night, each time in shuddering gasps, and each time Cal shushes me back to sleep. After the third time, I sat up to go into another room, whispering that I didn't want to keep waking him, but he pulled me back and held me close. He hums to me, and I recognize the song as the one we danced to, our first kiss, and the same song he hummed at our execution in the Bowl of Bones. Occasionally he sings a few words; I realize for the first time he probably has a beautiful singing voice. It lulls me back to sleep, and I don't wake until well into the day. When I do, it's because Cal has brought me food, though I can't tell for the life of me what it is.

"I'm not hungry," I grumble into the crook of my elbow.

Cal pulls the blanket from me and tosses it aside. Without it, I'm freezing, which only adds to my grumpy temperament. I flip over onto my stomach and curl my knees under me until they reach my chest. I let out a frustrated groan into the pillow, to which Cal laughs as he sits next to me. He rubs my back, immediately warming me and _warming_ me. I shiver, but the chill is long gone.

I stubbornly mumble into the pillow. "What is it?"

"Some sort of porridge with apples in it and… I think dried bread cubes. There's also charred fish." My stomach churns at the latter. That means Kilorn didn't cook it as he normally does. Kilorn being a fisherman led him to know fish in and out, including the best ways of cooking them. I wonder what he thought of this monstrosity of blackened rubber. I shake my head at it. "I'm fine, Cal. Really."

"I know it isn't much. It isn't much of anything." Without looking at him, I know Cal's nose is wrinkled in disgust. I hear it in his voice, and it nearly makes me laugh that he has to endure mediocre food probably for the first time in his life. Before the smile can reach my lips, however, I quickly remember two things: one, that the reason he has to endure this is because of me, and two, I have been used to this all my life because of…well, not him, but his kind. The people who he once fought for and belonged to, the people he may go back to at any time when it is safe for him to do so. Then he'll never know hunger again, while, if I'm lucky, I'll still be living off of the scraps a decent meal.

"We don't have the luxury of being picky," I snap, but it's softened by my face in the pillow. "I just can't eat anything right now."

Cal opens his mouth to protest but I shoot him a look that has him thinking the better of it. "Later," I promise. "When the fish isn't turning to ash."

He smiles, satisfied with my playful response, and motions for the door. "Come on then. Everyone is gathered in the great room and could probably use some direction."

I sigh heavily and pull myself out of bed to find a change of clothes. I wonder why everyone looks to me, why they think I have this all figured out. I wish Shade were here. Not only was he the fortitude of support wherever I steered us, he also made Farley strong and resilient. If Shade were alive, Farley would be giving the orders. Something tells me Farley's mind is far gone from the Scarlet Guard now.

I head out into the great room located in the center of the Notch, where the various corridors connect to this one central point. It's by far the biggest room inside, but everyone is squeezed in here tightly, uncomfortable and tense. When I get to the edge of our hallway, the one that leads to Cal's room, our room I guess, the crowd parts easily to allow me through. I take a deep breath through my nose to conceal the nervous gesture. Time to pull Mareena out.

"We cannot all stay here," I begin firmly. My words are blunt, lack any greeting or warm-up, but I need to get this out and drive this point home. "It is too great a risk to house Silvers, newbloods, and Scarlet Guard together under one roof. If you stay here, it is because you will fight with us." I look at the Silvers, capturing each one of their hard stares. "Against your kind. Against your King. I recognize many of you are afraid, and while I understand why, let me warn you that war is on each of our doorsteps. It is coming to us, and it will not slow down. I need only those who wish to fight with us, wherever we may go. If you cannot, you must leave."

"Tuck Island is maintained by the Scarlet Guard. Right now it houses Reds and the Guard, with bunkers and enough provisions to sustain each of you. All those who wish to seek refuge there will leave tonight. I cannot guarantee your comfort at Tuck, but I can guarantee your freedom."

Farley lets out a gruff laugh. "The Colonel isn't about to welcome us all with open arms. 'S not exactly like we left on good terms."

I stiffen my spine and look for her in the crowd, immediately regretting when my eyes lock with hers. Her eyes are swollen and heavy, as though she hasn't slept, and I immediately feel guilt washing over me. Sleep did not find me easily, but it did find me. Farley has been crying enough that her eyes and nose are as red as the blood beneath her skin. She's been mourning Shade like I should have been. Instead I spent the night kissing the boy beside me and sleeping in his arms. I wonder if Shade and Farley stayed together throughout the night like Cal and I do. Of course, Cal and I are nowhere near as intimate, but I cannot imagine the night without him next to me. I've grown to need him there, as much as I hate admitting it. Now all Farley comes back to is an empty bed. A cold bed.

Finally, my mouth catches up and I acknowledge her. "He gets Queen Elara's body. I think that runs a higher trade value than a jet, don't you think? "

Kilorn speaks up first. "You're just going to GIVE him Elara's body? What makes you think he even wants it?"

"It's the _queen_ , Kilorn. Colonel Farley will find some way to make a commotion with it."

Cal speaks up next, though it sounds like he's thinking aloud more than joining the conversation. "And you hope that he does. Make a commotion, that is. As a distraction." He looks at me quizzically, trying to burrow in my head to find the plan I myself have yet to fully realize.

"Right. The newbloods who want to stay will need training. Those of you with abilities like Silvers, but blood like mine. These abilities that have imprisoned you, that may overwhelm you, even scare you at times. I have been there. I know what that is like. You will need training on how to control them. Stay here, fight with us, and we can help you do that. We can turn your ability into your greatest weapon."

"What about those of us who don't want to stay or go where you tell us? What if I don't want your war?" A teenage boy, no older than me, steps forward demonstratively. He's tanned and bulkier than he should be for someone who just broke out of prison. I see it only out of the corner of my eye, but both Kilorn and Cal move closer to me. Cal's movement is smoother than Kilorn's, but it unnerves me that we get the same uneasy feeling about this kid.

"You get a choice in the former, not in the latter," Julian, ever the calm, effective teacher chimes in. "We are in a war predicated by a foolish boy who is threatened by your mere existence. He will not show what little _mercy_ you received in a cell. He will annihilate your entire race of anomalies to keep the Silver kingdom within his favor. Regardless of where you all go or how you choose to live from here on out, those of you with abilities beyond what any Silver has ever seen, you will need training. You risk the lives of everyone you know, everyone you may care for and love, if you do not learn to control what is inside you."

"And you will fight," I say quietly. "Whether it's to protect yourself or the people you care about, whether it's against Silver blood or our own, you will fight and you will lose if you don't know what you're doing because you're too stupid to learn."

The boy takes another step towards me. My fingers tingle with electricity but I keep it from coming to the surface, just barely. "You think I'll lose against you? The little lightning girl? The Red Queen?"

I don't even blink. "I know you will."

He moves fast to grab me, but I'm prepared for him. I have too much experience, as a thief, as a prisoner, and in the arena, and it works to my advantage. The second his fingers touch me, I shock him back. He surges forward again, but I send another bolt against his chest that packs more of a punch. Cal's hands hold two white hot flames; one of mind holds a swirling ball of electricity.

The unnamed boy lands several feet in front of me, growls, and slams his fist to the ground. The earth shakes beneath my feet, knocking every one of us over. It's a strange sensation, like the ripples on the lake but on the ground‐‐no, _in_ the ground. As everything rumbles, and small objects fall off tables and shelves, shattering all around us, the boy looks at me with wide eyes. I realize he can't make it stop. He can make the earth move somehow, but he cannot stop it. I'm on my hands and knees on the ground fighting the urge to vomit. I see Cal charge at the kid and pull him upright by his collar. He says something to him in a low, angry voice, but I cannot hear anything over the loud pulse in my ears.

Everything continues to shake, and in the panic, my skin starts flickering with lightning. This entire place will collapse in on us. I can see the walls starting to crumble and the ceiling crack. "Cal!" I scream. He doesn't hear me. He's focused on the now frightened boy who shakes his head against Cal's instructions.

It's Cameron that stumbles over to him and binds his senses, shutting him done piece by piece until she finds whatever it is in him that causes the shaking and silences that, too. The awful shaking stops within the 30 seconds or so that it took Cameron to figure out how he operated. I heave in breaths, more to keep myself from getting sick all over, which is more than I can say for Farley as she runs out clutching her mouth. Everyone is on the ground covering their heads. Broken pieces of whatever we had lying around scatter the floors, and the younger kids frantically search for Nanny, Ada, or Kilorn.

"This," I gasp, "is why," I throw up in my mouth a little and swallow it back with a burning grimace, "you need training." I force myself up and move to stand over him while Cameron starts letting go of her mental grip on him. I'm relieved that nothing shakes once she's fully disconnected herself. "The next time you start a fight to prove something, I will make it hurt."

Making my way toward the door outside, I speak with such an air of cold authority that would make Lady Blonos proud. "We leave for Tuck at nightfall."


	5. Chapter 5

"I'm not staying here," Farley tells me when I stand beside her. She's propped up against a tree, and though I can't see it, I can faintly smell the sick in the air from where she must have thrown up after she ran out of the safe house.

I nod, expecting this. She doesn't want to be around me, not after our spat on the plane. Or maybe I remind her of Shade. Or maybe she's just as tired as giving everything to the cause as I am starting to feel. "I get it," I answer her. I don't make eye contact with her, because I don't want to see the mourning that I know settles into the delicate lines on her face. It's easier to run away from grief when you aren't looking at it.

She sees through me anyway, as ever, quick on her feet and not one to take anything without a grain of salt. She rolls her eyes at me, something I can feel more than see. "You don't. You haven't the faintest idea."

I can't argue with her, so I don't. I just stand with my arms crossed over my chest and nod absentmindedly, because what am I supposed to say anyway? I can't make this right, and I am barely holding it together as it is.

"You look like him when you do that." I'm surprised to find the faintest smile on her otherwise tear-sodden face. My bottom lip quivers, betraying an otherwise blank expression. I don't want to cry in front of her; I don't know how to comfort her, and I can't bring myself to try. I remember when Shade was pulled from our home in Stilts for conscription, and my mother cried and cried for days, despite having done this twice before with my two older brothers, Bree and Tramy. I made tea, stirred whatever was cooking on the stove. I hung up Gisa's clothes and packed our lunches. I sat with my mom and watched her cry, but I didn't cry with her. I saved that for my room, when Gisa was fast asleep, and my pillow was enough to muffle the sound. I was ashamed of it then, and I'm ashamed of it now. I could say Farley isn't the type of person to need my comfort, but truth is, I don't really know the type of person Farley is. Only Shade did, and he's maybe the only one of us who ever would.

"What happened back on the airjet…" I don't know where this is going, but I plow through a half-ass attempt at an apology anyway. "I shouldn't have come at you like that. I'm sorry I—"

Farley cuts me off. "It was a weak hit anyway, Barrow. You should work on that if you're going to lead an army." She nudges my shoulder and the corner of her mouth lifts slightly. Suddenly, I'm sad she won't be around. She's always taken the lead, always known what to do. Without her, it's Cal and me. Cal, who doesn't want to kill any of his own. Cal, who thinks civil war, which is inevitable in my mind, is the worst circumstance I could plunge our state in. My insides start to tense as I realize just how enormous the task is ahead of us. We need Farley. _I_ need Farley. But it's not like I'm about to tell her that.

"You sure you won't stick around to teach me then?" It's a half-joke, knowing her teaching me anything without using my abilities will result in bruises and a sore ego, but of course, she sees the anxiety behind my words.

"You'll do fine, Mare. Just keep yourself together in the process."

Out here has become my only refuge from the noise and chaos that has become the inside of Notch. I'll be glad when it clears out and I can have a semblance of peace and quiet inside. I watch the sky as dusk begins to glaze over the horizon, waiting for either Kilorn or Cal to find me out here, but even they know it's probably best to give me space. I take the long way back to the cargo jet, through the forest and away from everyone else as they start to make the trek to the transport.

When I hear a crackling behind me, I half-expect it to be Kilorn, checking up on me or just keeping me company, but the sight of Shade jostles me. I bolt of lightning shoots towards a tree in the distance at the startle, but Shade just chuckles. "Thought you would've learned to control that by now."

"Shade…" Have I fallen asleep again? I need to wake up; I don't have time for a nap. They won't leave without me, but we cannot leave too late if I want to make it back by tomorrow morning. I shake my head violently, and I swear I almost feel my brain jostling inside my skull. But it doesn't yield to anything, because Shade is still standing in front of me.

"I know this'll take some getting used to, Mare," he starts slowly, coming toward me. "Come on. You need to keep moving."

I don't move. Tears pool into my eyes and I wish for this to go away. I know there's a danger in holding onto Shade when I've seen and held his cold body to know he is truly dead. Even in harmless dreams, I cannot bear to see Shade looking lively, albeit older, and smiling at me the way he always has. "Why are you here? Why are you doing this to me?" I shake my head and mutter when I correct myself. "Why am I doing this to myself? I'm going crazy."

When he puts his hands on my shoulders, it feels warm and real. "Mare, I'm here from the future. I can't explain how. I'm still trying to figure all of this out, but it's me. Mare, it's me. I'm real. This is real."

"Shade. I saw you. I felt you heavy and limp in my arms. Not breathing. Not moving. Just there. I _closed your eyes_ , Shade. Please," I tell myself, "don't do this."

I feel Shade squeeze my shoulders and in an instant I'm squeezed through space and standing in front of the jet. The shock of it forces me to my knees, where I cough and sputter on bile and vomit. This isn't a dream. There's no way I could do that in a dream. But this is impossible. There is no one who can come back from the dead. And Shade's body…it's still on the jet. Right? I scramble to my feet and take off running toward the empty aircraft, up the ramp and come to a stop in front of two bodies. Only Shade's was covered, and I put my hand over the sheet where it's still cold. Unnaturally cold, from Gelus having frozen his body earlier. I slowly pull the sheet down from Shade's face and see it for the first time since Cal took him from my arms back at Corros. Either I am going crazy, which is a high possibility, or this Shade lookalike is something else entirely. Is this a ghost—something I know doesn't exist despite the stories Shade would read to me as a kid? Or is it a newblood like Nanny who can shift appearances? Is this another one of Maven's tricks? Suddenly I'm alert and cursing myself for not having been earlier; the lightning comes to my skin and crackles in the silence. "Who are you?" I growl low, dangerously.

Whoever this is remains calm, though he puts his hands up and takes a step back. I rise to my feet and turn to him. The only reason I haven't sent a bolt through him is because he looks so remarkably like my brother.

"Mare, when you were 11 and Dad was in the Choke, before he came back with the lung machine in him of course, you and Kilorn got into it over him throwing a fish at you. It hit you square in the face and you reeked the whole day. You stopped talking to him for a week, even though he kept hanging around. He just followed you everywhere, talking your ear off, until finally you punched him in the shoulder and called it even. When you were 15, Mom sat you down and told you that your body was going through changes, and Kilorn and you might want to explore those changes and urges—"

"Stop! Stop, stop." I flush red with embarrassment and Shade laughs. It's his laugh. The sound of it, the breathiness to it, the warmth and love that only a brother can have for his sister. It's Shade. I don't know how, and I haven't ruled out my own insanity as a reason, but I no longer feel threatened. "I don't understand," I whisper hoarsely. "You shouldn't be here when you're…" I look back toward his body.

"I know it doesn't make sense, Mare. I told you, I barely understand it myself but I'm trying to figure it out. I don't get to stay long, and I cannot tell you much. It changes everything. Every step we take from here on out changes things for all of us. No one can know. No one, Mare. It's too dangerous for you, and it will destroy our chances to make things right."

I don't have to ask to know who he means. Cal can't know. I can keep things from Kilorn for his own good. Even Farley, to keep her from suffering more. But Cal…I've lied to him before, and it's eaten me alive. How do I keep something as big as this?

"You just have to, Mare. He can't know."

I nod, knowing what I'm agreeing to will hurt Cal. He's perceptive and observant. He knows me better than anyone does, and with whatever going on between us intensifying, he won't miss this.

"Mare, I need to go. Listen…" Shade tells me what to do when I get to Tuck. He and I go over what to say to the Colonel, and where to go next. He promises he'll see me again soon. When he's finished, the sun is barely brimming over the horizon, the last of the daylight tinted deep orange and purple.

"Shade," I know he must leave but I have to say this aloud while I have the chance. A part of me still doesn't believe this Shade is real, a testament of my own mental breakdown. But as long as a part of me believes, _needs_ to believe, I have something I need to tell him. "I'm sorry I got you killed. I dragged us to Corros. I pushed us to rescue Julian, to chase newbloods against Maven. If it wasn't for me, you would still be here. I mean—I see you here. But you know, _here._ With Farley. With the Scarlet Guard. Back at Notch making jokes about the food and giving everyone a reason to believe in the cause. You should be here. If you never came back for me, if you weren't always looking out for me, we wouldn't be in half the mess we are in now. And-and I wish it was me. It should have been me, the little lightning girl who started all this. You have no idea how much I wish it would have hit me instead of you."

Shade reaches his thumb out to smear the tear off my cheek. "Everything happened the way it was supposed to, Mare. You are needed here, and I am still here with you in a way. I will always look after you. That's what big brothers are for, little sister." He pulls me to his chest but before I can lay my head against him, he's gone and I'm left to wonder if I'm going crazy. It's the only explanation I can accept and one that makes more sense than reconciling the Shade wiping away my tears and the one under a sheet. I sink to the floor and cry harder than I think I ever have in my life. The weight of all of this is suffocating me, and I wish for home in the Stilts. I wish for the worn ladder and Kilorn making bird calls in the middle of the night. I wish for Gisa's beautiful embroidery at the kitchen table and Mom and Dad talking about the neighbors. I wish for Cal as the kind cloaked boy who befriends a thief in the night. Perhaps we would have met at that tavern every night to people-watch, and I would've told him about the daily grind of us Reds and he'd ask questions without ever giving himself away as the Princeling of a wretched kingdom. Maybe he still would have taken me on his cycle and laughed when I stumbled off and cursed the thing. What would life have been like for us if I was never publicly outed as the lightning girl with impossible abilities? It's then I remember this war would have come anyway. It started before me with the Scarlet Guard, Farley, and the Colonel. All roads would have led to this end one way or another.

I see the others approaching and furiously rub my face to get rid of the tear stains. I busy myself with throwing on the flight suit and pulling my hair back. Anything to look mundane and not like I've been talking to Shade, or myself more likely.

"Ready?" I hear Cal's voice approaching and turn to find him coming up the steps. He grabs his flight gear, and here is my cue to overcome obstacle one of this plan.

"I need you to stay here." For once my tone betrays my inner hesitancy on the first try. Cal is caught off-guard by my order, but his hand stops midair from his jacket anyway. He narrows his eyes argumentatively at me, but I forge ahead before he can.

"The newbloods who are staying need to be watched, in case any of them accidentally, or intentionally for that matter, use their abilities. And they need to be guarded from Maven, should he find out about his mother before I have a chance to hand Elara over to Colonel Farley. You're the strongest one we have here, Cal, and it makes sense for you to stay behind."

Cal is stalking towards me now, and with every step nearer, I feel my pulse quicken and the tension increase. I keep going.

"I also need you here in case things get bad at Tuck. I can hold my own against the Colonel, but you're not exactly Prince Charming. I just need things to go smoothly, and we have a better chance at that if I go alone. I think the Colonel will be more amenable. And it's not that I think you would do anything. In fact, you have beet self-control than I have, but it's just safer if we're split up. I know it isn't ideal, but really it's the most sensible opt—"

My rambling is cut short when Cal tugs the hem of my jacket and pulls me against his chest. His eyes watch his fingers as he clasps the zipper together and drags it up. His knuckle skims my belly and until he stops just at my chest. Like a gentleman, his eyes don't linger there, but like a lover, his hand does. He flattens his palm over my heart where I'm sure he can feel it racing.

"You've been crying," he whispers sadly. I look up to see him looking at me now. His brow is furrowed and his eyes search mine.

 _Don't mention Shade, don't mention Shade, don't mention Shade._ "I just don't want to leave you." The truth, though a lie of omission all the same. "But I don't see a way around this."

I know Cal sees more to it than that, but he doesn't push. His disappointment is subtle, so I don't linger on it. "Ada can take care of the flight. And I recommend Kilorn staying with you since he takes to the older ones really well."

He nods. "Julian is going with you, and Sara, of course." Cal's fingers intertwine at the small of my back. This affectionate embrace is closer than I'm used to standing with anyone for any length of time, though I don't pull away. When he tilts my chin up and holds my gaze, I want to look away from the intensity of it. What if Shade is just an image I'm conjuring up and having conversations with as a coping mechanism? Would Cal think I'm crazy? But then I can't explain teleporting to the jet. I could have walked the length of the forest and lost track of time. Blanked out or something. I'm tired, and I haven't eaten properly in a couple days. This could be exhaustion and grief helping me make decisions that I don't know how to make on my own anymore. Shouldn't I tell Cal about it then? Doesn't he deserve to know the person everyone is trusting to lead them is talking to her dead brother?

The internal struggle is broken when people start filing in. I step back but Cal doesn't let me gain much distance. "Be safe, Mare." He must see the reluctance in my eyes, because while I know he wants to kiss me, he settles on pressing his lips against the top of my head, and I can hear him breathing in the scent of my hair. He pulls away at the last moment, right as Ada brushes past us to the pilot's seat. I take my seat next to her and prepare for obstacle two: convincing the Colonel to broadcast Elara's death and welcoming Maven to the Dead Family Club.


	6. Chapter 6

We make it to Tuck in record time thanks to Ada's superior flying. She took note of the wind currents, the weather, the temperature, and while I'm not sure how any of it relates, she knew exactly what to do and how to do it to keep us in the air as little as possible. Her reasoning was wanting to get us from safe point A to safe point B quickly, to limit any chances of interference by Maven's army. She's always thinking ahead, and for that I'm beyond grateful. To think when I first met her I underestimated how valuable she'd be to us, but she is by far our most valuable member.

When the jet lands, Falrey and I lead the way. The Silvers are hesitant to get out of their seats, but Julian is curious and antsy to learn how a society of Reds managed to take up residence on an island right under the kingdom's nose.

"Stop right where you are, Mare Barrow." Colonel Farley's voice can be heard some distance away. When I squint I can see him and a team of Scarlet Guard behind him. All armed, but thankfully their weapons are not drawn on us.

I proceed anyway, but it's a warning shot that stops me abruptly.

"Warm welcome," Farley grumbles next to me.

"You have some nerve to show up here again after stealing my transport."

I look back to the massive black jet, seemingly admiring the new jet we took from Corros. "You mean your stolen transport I stole," I quip. "We've upgraded since then."

"I can see that. And you brought it here, foolishly. What brings you crawling back to my island? Need a place to hide?" he asks smugly. He thinks we're here for refuge.

Farley rolls her eyes and makes her way past him. His eyes follow her, but she doesn't look up to meet them. She breaks through the line of Colonel's security and heads towards the barracks, leaving me bereft. I'll have to convince the Colonel on my own then. "I don't, no. She's staying, and this lot are, too," I gesture to the group behind me. The Colonel's eyes rake over them and immediately grimace at the Silvers.

"Like hell they are!" he growls, but only loud enough for me to hear.

I step forward to meet him at less than a couple feet away. I still have to look up to meet his glare, but the one I have matches the intensity of his. "Colonel, these men and woman, and children, are staying at Tuck. Some are Reds, some are newbloods—like me. And some are Silver. They were all rescued from Corros, where they've been locked in cells under Elara's orders. They've been tortured for information, for fun. Who knows what else. They need somewhere safe, and you will provide them that. Peacefully. With the respect they've earned for everything they've lost."

The Colonel scoffs but looks intrigued anyway. He knows I have something else. "This isn't a charity island, Ms. Barrow. We take in Reds only. Your newbloods can stay as they're still red in blood. But no Silvers. Silvers have no place here."

"These Silvers are here because they were imprisoned for speaking out against Queen Elara and King Maven. Because they didn't believe their lies, because they don't agree with how the Reds are treated. Not all Silvers are the hateful monsters you make them out to be, Colonel. They want acceptance and tolerance as much as we do. You will house them here, as you would any other Red—without discrimination or unkindness, and in return, you may win very helpful, very powerful allies. It would be stupid to refuse hospitality to a group that can make a positive impact here at Tuck. You don't strike me a a stupid man, Colonel. Besides, I have an even better prize to offer."

I call forward the two Silvers who volunteered to carry Elara's body out. They drop her unceremoniously at my and the Colonel's feet. With my foot I kick back the sheet to reveal her face. "Sorry to say I don't have her crown to complete the look."

The Colonel's eyes flit between her face and mine with a slack jaw and silent alarm. It's hard to keep the smile behind my bored expression. He tries to ask me something, what or how, I think, but only a stutter comes out. He reaches down to touch her shoulder, drawing back at the chill.

"I had to have her frozen to keep her from decaying before we got here. I figured you could make more of an impact with a recognizable queen's corpse in your arsenal." If I sound flippant or cruel, it's a damn good show. Inside, I'm shaking. Whatever the Colonel does with the body, it'll be a scene, no doubt. It'll have the most impact of anything the Scarlet Guard has done so far. Maven, and all the High Houses, will know just how capable we are. How capable I am. In one of Julian's books, he once read to me about the shot heard 'round the world. This is my shot.

Finally, the Colonel speaks, not to me, but those behind me. "Welcome to Tuck. If you follow my men, they'll show you around."

I turn to go the opposite way, down the pathway to the Barrow quarters. The Colonel takes a few long strides to meet up with me.

"We have more to discuss, Ms. Barrow."

"It can wait." I brush him off, much as I'd rather stay here and talk logistics than see my family. I thought convincing the Colonel would be hard. I didn't think far enough ahead to figure out what I'd tell my family about Shade.

"Now hold on just a minute, kid, I'm in charge around here and I said-"

I step ahead of him and stop him so abruptly he has to stumble back to avoid crashing into me. In my hand is the tiniest spark, twisting and turning viciously above my palm. "I said it can wait."

The glower is palpable. "Very well," the Colonel acknowledges. He turns on his heel and retreats back to Elara's body.

Back in the Barrow barracks, the whole family is sitting around in various states. Tramy is sleeping. Bree is teaching Gisa a card game. Mom is fussing around with tidying and laundry. And Dad stares out of the window. He's the first to see me coming, but if he's surprised, he doesn't show it.

I'm greeted with shouts and laughter, and of course Mom's joyful tears. Bree pulls the blanket Tramy is wrapped in so quickly that Tramy rolls out onto the floor with a loud thud. When he recovers, he joins in the excited welcome. They bombard me with questions: where I've been, what I've been doing, how long I'm back. I give myself a moment to bask in the normalcy of this. When the weight of the world didn't sit on my shoulders. When life was simpler, and _easier_ -which I never thought possible. None of them are angry at me for having left without a goodbye last time. Their hesitation of having a freak for a sister is no longer sitting like its own family member in the room. And none of them have noticed I'm alone until...

"When's Shade coming along?" asks Gisa.

My eyes find my dad's on instinct, and like the daddy's girl I once was, I silently ask him to please understand. Please don't make me say it out loud.

His eyes widen and his mouth sets in a grim line before he responds. "He didn't make it."

Tramy and Bree understand within the split second. They've thought he was dead before. They've been to war. They know the cost and the odds against us. My mom follows a few seconds later after staring at my dad. It's her strangled sob that finally triggers Gisa's own realization. I try to explain, I open my mouth several times to give them answers or an apology, but I can't. I can't find the words, and worse, I can't own up to Shade's death even though it's my fault. I selfishly don't want them to see me as the daughter who got their sweetest, brightest son killed. Tramy is the only one who pushes for how, and it takes everything in me to say the words.

"He was killed by one of the guards at the prison we led a rescue mission in. A Silver...threw a blade...at, at me. Shade, he...well he came in front of me out of nowhere. It was instant. Everything, all of it happened so fast."

Mom, Bree, and Gisa all break down in front of me. It's only Dad who turns his head and presses his fist to mouth, and Tramy who closes his eyes and leans his head back against a wall, that don't make a sound or show of it. No one here runs away from their grief, not like me. I stand in the room and suddenly feel suffocated with it and wish these hallucinations or Shade would come back and tell comfort everyone is the way they've begun to comfort me. If they knew I was seeing him, would they lock me away here?

I don't have the luxury of staying much longer, and I'm grateful for one of the newbloods on this trip who offered to make preparations for Shade's funeral so I don't have to. He can redistribute surfaces to make holes-anywhere. In walls, through concrete and in dirt. I tell my family of the plan and give them a couple hours to sit with Shade before the funeral. I hate to rush them, but I am running out of time here and I refuse to leave without seeing to it that Shade is laid to rest.

When I return to Colonel Farley's quarters, I'm surprised to see a camera is set up and the Colonel fussing over his dress uniform. "What's all this?" I ask. I poke at the camera; I've never seen one up close before. A guard moves to slap my band but thinks better of it when I raise an eyebrow.

"We are going to make the evening broadcast, Ms. Barrow." He explains the script, the plan to get it aired as an interruption to tonight's broadcast where he's sure Maven will be making an announcement about Corros. At one point, Colonel Farley even asks me to participate in it, but I quickly and adamantly decline. The less people see of my face, the better. He wants to credit me for her deathl, though I don't see the problem with that. Good. Let Maven know I'm responsible for his mother the same way he's responsible for Cal's father. I hurry the Colonel along, needing to go over the course of action once I leave here. We still have thousands of Red soldiers, children no less, who are marching for the Choke without a lick of training. I doubt they'll even be armed with more than maybe a rusty shrapnel for a dagger. After we pore over the details, we have a firm plan in place. The Colonel has extensive knowledge of the Lakelander's side which is proving valuable beyond measure, and if all goes according to plan, we should be able to stop them from reaching the Choke the same day they're scheduled to reach it. The Colonel tells me not to worry where they'll go. Tuck can house most of them, but there are smaller islands all around controlled by the Scarlet Guard. What happens after, he tells me, isn't anything to worry. It's what happens to the rest of the Reds if we pull this off. My head swims at the consequences I can only imagine, knowing firsthand my imagination isn't far off from reality. If I let it simmer too long, I'll go madder than I already feel. I'll worry about the consequences when we reach them. Right now, I worry about saving as many as we can.

When I leave to go back to my family, I catch the beginning of what will undoubtedly mark my end, seal my fate.

" _People of Norta, your Kind and Queen have lied to you. They have taken your own as prisoners—Silvers and Reds alike. They have told you you have no cause to be afraid. They have stolen your children, slaughtered our people. They have told you the lightning girl doesn't exist. A common Red with a twisted agenda. Today I tell you the lightning girl does exist, a Red like us and a Silver like you, and she has conquered the Queen. We will not be silent. We will not be ruled. We will rise…"_

I hurry out, not wanting to hear the rest. Whether the Colonel realizes it or not, he just signed my death certificate. And I handed him the pen.


	7. Chapter 7

We've been in the air for an hour, chasing the sun as the sky turns from black to hues of deep purple. Saying goodbye to my family, a proper goodbye that they deserved, was gut-wrenching. I made it through Shade's funeral like a quiet statue, intent on watching him lowered to the ground with every painful second that passed. Farley and I stayed the longest, though neither of us said anything. When she turned to leave first, she placed her hand over my wrist. "Rise," she said, her voice thick with emotion. I met her gaze and nodded. "Red as the dawn."

Saying goodbye to Julian was much harder than I thought it would be. At one point I gave him reasons for why he could help us at the Notch, how valuable his teaching was to me and would be for the other newbloods. The opportunity to continue his studies. In truth, now that I found him, I needed him. He's my moral compass, my teacher. Without him, and without Shade, I have only myself to rely on. Julian reassured me the only way Julian can: by telling me to pull my chin up and stop feeling sorry for myself. He promised to have Sara fix Gisa's hand once I left; my one small gift to my family after a lifetime of pain I've given them. It the one thing I can do to make things right.

Ada pulls me from my thoughts with a stream of switching and clicking things on the control panel. "Ada," I ask her in mild panic, "what is it? What's wrong?"

She mumbles something incoherently and I have to shout to get her attention. "We're being pulled backward!"

"What do you mean? No we're—"

I don't get to finish my sentence before the back of the jet opens up into a gargantuan hole in the darkness. Both of us are strapped in, but I can feel my chair coming apart beneath me. When my belt click open, I fly toward the back end of the jet, desperately grasping for anything that I can hold onto. But a long metal snake twists out of nowhere and wraps around my ankle, then up my leg, until it's pulling me down toward the ground in controlled speed. The metal rod splits into a half dozen to encompass my body in a tight squeeze, the final one clamps around neck, beginning to choke me. I shut my eyes and search for my trigger in all the panic, finally latching onto the tingling underneath my skin to send electricity down the main rod coming from somewhere below. I hear a growl that sounds like Evangeline, so I power up and release again. This time when I aim for the sound, I'm rewarded with her scream.

"That's enough!"

Maven's roar is unmissable and stops me cold. I'm jerked the last few feet to the ground with a sickening crack. There goes my shoulder, collarbone, and a rib or two. The snake is still around my neck, and I claw at it maddeningly but it doesn't ease. Evangeline's payback is going to kill me before Maven has the chance.

When I start seeing stars is when Maven scolds Evangeline. Like an owner would a pet. The metal retracts until my body lies limply on the wet grass. In the distance I see the sun beginning to rise in brilliant streaks of orange throughout the purple-black night.

Maven crouches next to me and forced my chin towards him. I'm shocked to find that he's been crying. I can see it in the red rimming of his eyes, their bloodshot exhaustion, the dry patches on his cheeks. I have the sense to bite my tongue against the smart-ass comment that burns my tongue.

"I hear condolences are in order," he spits viciously with his signature half-smirk. It unnerved me back then, and I ignored it. It unnerves me still.

"Same," is my raspy whisper back.

That earns me a blow across my cheek. I feel the bitter rusty taste of blood in my mouth and fight the urge to gag on it. Maven grabs hold of the back of my hair and lifts my head off the ground to meet his. The movement pulls at my broken torso but I stifle the cry.

"I would have you on a leash, paraded among the gilded streets of Archeon to the wretched slums of the Stilts. Just because it pleases me. Just to see you on your knees at my feet." His words are vitriol and terrifying; worse than death, I fear the imprisonment of the palace. Cold sparkling walls, isolation, loneliness. He knows it, too. He knows it from my time as Mareena Titanos just how much I cannot live that way. He continues on, "Or you could be my Queen. Not publicly, of course, as the rest of them wouldn't accept you. But I could make them. You could be the Red Queen as strong as any Silver, stronger even. We can rule together. Your strength. My power." He palms my cheek, and his icy blue eyes pierce mine. Only this time, I don't find warmth or reassurance in them like I used to. It's all cold, evil, and manipulative. "I could forgive you all this, Mare. You need only to come with me." In response, I spit in his face, a rash move that earns me several seconds of the torturous clicker that he holds in his other hand. I curse myself for only having just noticed it. Unlike the last time, I can feel the new jagged scars searing my skin. A whimper forms in the back of my mouth, but I clamp my lips tightly to keep it from escaping and deny Maven the sound. When he grabs me by the neck to pull my face against his, I cringe at the sweetness of his breath. It's just as Elara's was, sickly sweet and poisonous with intention.

"I will have you in my palace, as my wife or as my prisoner, Mare. But not yet. Not when you still have much to learn." He whispers it in my ear, and there's no mistaking the conviction behind his words. In that moment, I can see my future the way he sees it. It makes my stomach roil with grief and anxiety.

Before I can react, I feel something sharp press into the nape of my neck. It pinches like a large needle, and I realize too late that Evangeline is behind me. Maven holds my chin firmly in his hand, though I kick and scream against him, it's not enough. When they've finished, I don't feel any different but my body is shaking with the stress of what I don't know is to come.

Maven lets go and I hit the floor with a loud _thunk_. He crouches down ahead of me, fully smirking-no, beaming at me. "I'd like to see my brother try to touch you now."

Maven chuckles darkly, and Evangeline, at his side with a sinister smirk. They leave however they came, but I just as soon as I lift my head, something clicks. In my head I hear it go off once, twice. As soon as they have disappeared into the too-bright risk sun, my skin erupts in lightning. It's my own but not under my control. I scream as the slow, maddening clicks go off in my head, my muscles flex and curl painfully. I clutch my neck to find nothing but smooth skin, no indication of whatever they've done. I scratch anyway, frantically, drawing blood all over my fingertips as my sharp nails make a mess without any relief. I hope eventually I'll pass out. I hope it'll be too much like that last time and I can drift off into a coma and someone will find me. I hope someone finds me.

Hours pass and I'm still awake, still sparking menacingly. I've tried to reign it in, to make it stop, to control it; but everything I do only makes it worse. My body is drained of energy, but I managed to crawl my way to a clearing, where Ada emerges from the opposite side of the forest looking for me. Her shrill scream is a blinding pain to my head. I'm relieved to see she's unharmed, aside from scrapes and along her arms and knees.

"Mare, what—" She reaches out to touch my but draws her hand back with a sharp 'ow!'. "Mare, your… your whole body is electrocuting."

"Get Cal," I grit between my teeth.

"We're still a few hours away by foot. Can you walk?"

I shake my head. Can I last the day like this waiting for help? Will Maven come back, or worse—Evangeline? She'd kill me in an instant; she'll be hailed the Silver hero. Will I even care at that point?

"Okay, I'll run as much as I can, as fast as I can. Just hang on, Mare. We'll get you some help."

With my cheek pressed to the earth, I can smell the dirt and autumn leaves around me. It's strangely comforting, to know I might die here against the ground of the forest. I can pretend I'm back in Stilts, and this is just a Saturday afternoon with Gisa. While she embroiders luxurious silks in impeccable designs, flowers or flames, I'm napping in the autumn sun—warm enough to lull me into lazy sleep, breezy enough to keep it from baking me. I ask what she's making, and she'll tell me it's a custom piece for so-and-so of such-and-such house. The names don't mean anything to me then, and they don't really mean anything to her. She sews because she's good at it. It's a job, and one she'll be immensely successful at as she learns. She'll probably even open her own shop and make a good living for herself. She does this to secure her future, and ours, not to please the Silvers. I open my eyes, expecting to see Gisa there with me, but there's nothing but dirt and leaves and the roots of the trees. A chill has taken place of the warm sun as the day comes to an end. I estimate it's been 8 hours, maybe more. My dad used to have this old time teller that he would wear on his wrist before he was conscripted. It told the time with numbers and moving hands, but one day it just stopped working and he knew no one to repair it. ' _Not that it matters,'_ he'd said, _'time doesn't move in our favor anyway. No use in waiting for anything.'_

Tears sting my eyes, burning underneath the sizzling of the electricity floating on my body. I'll never be able to do that with Gisa again. We'll never sit peacefully by the river, undeterred by the world around us in the quiet of our Saturday afternoon. I'll never undo everything I've done, and who I've become. And maybe, maybe they would be safer, happier, if I was no longer here. No more trouble brought to their doorsteps, no more dead siblings attached to my name.

A crunch on the leaves has me startled, but I can't move more than a few fingers twitching for lightning I can control.

"Oh Mare," Shade whispers. He's sits next to me before stretching out and lying beside me. His face is parallel with mine, though he's a couple feet away to avoid the dangerous state I'm in. When I see his sparkling brown eyes, the tears pour onto my cheek and the leaves under me. He looks a bit older than the last time I saw him. Do you age in the afterlife when you die? I try to convince myself it's really him, from the future like he said, but it doesn't stick.

"Am I going with you?" I manage to whisper in gulps through tears. "Please, Shade. Please take me with you, wherever it is. I don't want to do this anymore."

It's hard to see him through cloudy eyes and tiny veins of flashing electricity. They've faded a bit now, maybe not as scary-looking, but I still feel them and so will anyone else who dares approach me. But I see him shake his head once, the movement halted by the ground he lies on with me. "Not today, sis. Cal is on his way. Just hang on. Don't close your eyes."

I sniffle loudly and realize I can't smell the earth anymore. "No one is coming, Shade."

I see the corner of his mouth lift sadly. "He is, I promise. I delivered a gift to him that should help."

Shade saw Cal? Does that mean Cal knows what's going on? That I'm not dreaming of Shade but that he's actually here, lying with me?

"In secret," he clarifies when he notices my expression. "Cal doesn't know it was me, and remember Mare, only you know. Only you _can_ know."

With a huff, I scoff at the bleak outlook of this secret anyway. "I'll take it to my grave. Which, conveniently, you're right next to. VIP seats."

"What Maven did to you…it's an implant. A mini version of that device he first used on you. It's in the back of your neck, underneath your skin. Ada needs to remove it, but you'll need to pull in the electricity so she can work on you." I ask him how I'm supposed to do that when this thing is controlling my ability, not me. He explains what's doing, amplifying my ability, but I can overcome it. I nod absentmindedly, feeling my eyes grow heavy as my body and mind begin to give out.

"How'd things go at Tuck?" he asks.

"Why? You're from the future, don't you know?"

He doesn't take the bait. "I want you to tell me. Keep talking, Mare. It'll keep you awake."

So I do. I tell him about Tuck and the Colonel. I tell him about Farley, and I swear his eyes light up and pang with sadness at the same time. I tell him Tramy and Bree, Gisa, Mom and Dad. I'm telling him how Bree pulled Tramy onto the floor, and Shade mutters ' _Idiot'_ and I laugh. It hurts but I do it anyway. I talk so much that I go off on tangents without realizing the sun has set and I'm freezing. When I come to the end of my anecdote about Gisa sharing a bathroom with Tramy for the first time, I blink to find Shade is no longer there. I chuckle in exasperation; I'll die out here a crazy person, talking and laughing to herself. Cold and alone.

In the distance, however, I notice there's a rumbling. A loud, guttural, and familiar rumbling. A bright beam of light breaks the darkness around me while I try to place where I know that sound. With all my strength, I lift my head to see what it is, and immediately recognize it as Cal's cycle—the one he took me on when we snuck out to visit my family. It's Cal. He's here. He made it back to me.

Cal barrels through the clearing and finds me twitching on the floor. I watch him go into soldier mode, but not before I catch the sadness and fear flicker on his goldenrod eyes.

"Mare, are you bleeding anywhere? Is anything broken?"

"Shoulder. Ribs, I think." I watch Cal nod and look around. There's no one here, and he brought no one with him, but I realize he's at a loss for what to do.

"Can you make it stop?" he implores.

I shake my head. "The more I try, the worse it gets. Sha—" I slip, rebounding quickly, "She, Evangeline, put something in me. In my neck. It makes the slow clicking in my head, and it's controlling the lightning. Not me. I can't."

I watch Cal run his hands over his face. If I didn't know any better, it would look like his eyes were glassy and wet.

"Right, okay," he leans in to grab me and miraculously I find it in me to roll away from him. I let out an agonizing scream, having rolled onto my broken side, but I hold my hands out to stop him from advancing.

"Cal, are you blind? You can't touch me!"

Cal growls at me and scoops me into his arms anyway. His teeth and jaw set tightly, and I can tell he's trying to fight against the pain of holding my sparking body in his arms. He cradles me to his chest, which just makes it worse for him. Again I cry at the sight, knowing this is impossible for him to continue back to the Notch like this. I have to do something.

I take a deep breath, squeeze my eyes shut, and mentally search for the foreign intrusion in my neck. With every ounce of willpower left in me, I tense my body and squeeze my mind around it. It's like carrying a boiling pot of water with your bare hands. One misstep, and it all spills out. Don't focus on the burning, on the excruciating pain. Just hold onto it. I can do this. I don't know how long, but I can try.

"That's it, Mare," comes Cal's smooth, whisper of reassurance. He kisses a corner of my eye where tears of collected. "That's my girl."

My whole body is shaking with the strained effort this is taking me, but Cal's warmth keeps me going. I hardly register that he's sat on the cycle with me in his lap. He carefully turns me so my legs wrap around him and my chest is flush with his. I put my head on his shoulder and my arms around his waist and settle into him.

"Hold on, baby."

Despite everything, I can't help but smile against his heart.


	8. Chapter 8

We have to be getting closer. I don't know if we actually are, but I will it to happen because any minute I'm going to pass out or blast Cal into oblivion. I press my head harder into the crook of his shoulder, wanting to scream, wanting to throw myself off the cycle, and Cal must sense something shift because his low voice in my ear tells me it's just a few more miles.

I feel myself start to give way as Cal slow down. It's first in my fingers and toes, so I loosen my grip on Cal to keep my appendages away from him and anything I could possible disrupt with the extra electricity. When it starts making its way up my limbs, I'm holding my breath and forcing it to stop, or at least stay low. "Cal," I warn loudly, drawing out his name with desperate whining.

"Almost there," he grunts back at me. He can start to feel the tiny shocks, too.

'Almost there' isn't close enough. "CAL!" Now I really shout. I can feel, literally feel, the tiny single thread of control I'm holding onto slip through my fingers. It's no longer any minute, but milliseconds. There are milliseconds separating myself and a human transformer box.

He slows down enough for me to pull my head to the side and see the Notch ahead, so I throw myself off onto the ground before Cal can stop me. He yells my name, but I've barely registered it before I cry out at the release of electricity from my body. I begin to retch, but remembering Cal is there, I swallow the bile back until I'm gagging on it mercilessly. I'm gasping against the dirt under me, coughing when I've inhaled its particles, and simultaneously crying from relief and agony. We made it. I don't know how, but we made it, and we're both alive. For now. I don't know how much more of this I can take. I try to get up on shaky hands and knees, but they give out and I hit the ground again. My collarbone and ribs are still smarting, but it's nothing, _nothing_ compared to how taxing this device is. Cal's cycle shuts off not too far from me and he's instantly, albeit cautiously, at my side. I rock myself into a ball, make myself as small as possible, to keep from accidentally hurting him. When he leans in, I can see burn marks in his shirt from where I was too late.

I hear him call for Ada, and he urgently whispers for me to stay awake. In my head, I roll my eyes. Of course I'll stay awake. My body is howling with furious electricity that hurts every nerve in my body. It's not like I'm going to nap it out.

That's the last thought I have as darkness swirls in my vision and my mind goes blank.

Outside of my body, I can hear voices that feel like echoes in the distance. It's Cal's firm and commanding voice I recognize first.

"Ada, get Ada."

There's no response, so the next time I hear Cal speak, it's with scorching frustration. "Ada! Ada, Kilorn! Move quickly!"

Muffled noises approach. I want so badly to open my eyes and see faces, but I'm trapped in the darkness. Kilorn speaks next. "Shit, Cal. Is she alive? What happened? Did she go postal again?"

"Shut up, Kilorn!" I'm surprised to hear Ada's sharp scolding before Cal responds. "Mare?" she asks nervously. I swear I can feel Cal rolling his eyes behind her, knowing it's going to take more than a gentle prodding at my name to awaken me. If I'm asleep, that is. Am I dead? But I can't be, because my insides are sizzling and twitching relentlessly. I refuse to believe you carried pain with you in death. I'll have to ask dream-Shade whenever I see him again.

Cal speaks on my behalf. "She said Maven injected her with something. A device or implant. Something that's controlling her powers. Or accelerating them. I don't know, but we have to get it out of her. It's draining her." _Draining_ is a kind word for it and Cal knows it. Killing is more like it.

"You made it here with her like…that?"Again, Kilorn asking dubious and unhelpful questions, but I don't begrudge him for it. He is quick on his feet, but not quick with his mouth unless he's annoying me.

"She controlled it, but it didn't last longer than the ride back, and even then, just barely."

I can't see Kilorn, but I hear him pacing behind me. He has a way of shuffling his feet, and he must be used to that from sliding on boats most his life. "So what do we do to get whatever it is out of her? Can we even get it out?"

Ada responds, "I could probably make an incision and get it—did she say where it was? But I can't…not with her like this. It would be impossible."

If they can't hep me, then Maven is right. Cal will never touch me again. No one will. Then I'll truly be alone, because if Maven can't have me, damned if he'll let anyone else, especially Cal.

Kilorn gets down close to me, I think. I hear him whisper so faintly, and I struggle to hear him through the cacophony of dead noise in my head. "Mare, can you hear me? Are you in there? Listen, remember when we were ten and I got that nasty splinter in my palm? Remember that? It was jammed way in there and I didn't say anything for a couple days because I was a dumb kid with no one to help. It hurt like hell and by the third day, it had turned black and red and blistered. I tried hiding it from you when we were playing ball, but then you saw it and decided you would cut it out, and you borrowed, okay technically you stole my master's knife and you cleaned it with your dad's whiskey that he only drinks when someone dies, and you cut a gash in my palm and dug it out. Then your mom was furious with you for a week afterward, but you did it. Probably saved my life. You took that splinter clean out. Well, Mare, now you have your own splinter and we're going to save your life. Just…just hang on in there while we figure it out. Don't give up on us."

The earnestness in Kilorn's voice hurts. It hurts because he's wrong. I can't fix this. Even if I could, I'm too tired. I am useless like this. Cal was better off leaving me in the forest away from everyone else. I start to feel cold again and shiver, but nothing can keep this kind of chill away.

It takes several tries before I can open my eyes completely, but when I do, I'm relieved to see Cal beside me. He's asleep; I can tell by the warm puffs of breath that escape his slightly parted lips, and the soft rumble in his nose from the snoring he swears he doesn't do. Instinctively I reach out to pull his hair out of his eyes, but I stop myself when my own hand comes into focus ahead of me. Still sparking like mad, with blue, white and purple webs around my fingers. I bite my lip against the cry of frustration so I don't wake Cal.

I look around us to see we are outside, and either intentionally or subconsciously, Cal is putting out enough heat to keep me warm in the chilly autumn air. He's like a space heater. Mom and Dad had one very rickety one I'd stolen for them one particularly bad winter when we didn't have enough lec rations to power the heater overnight. They'd given us their blankets and had all of us sleep next to each other for warmth. After that first night, I went two towns over for wool blankets and came back with those and the heat contraption that would save us for years to come.

The sun is coming up on the far horizon, this one is softer in its pastel hazy glow. It feels promising, encouraging. I recognize what I need to do, and though I'm not sure it'll work or if I can even go through with it, I'll be damned if I don't try.

I focus all my energy on pulling back the lightning around my right arm. It's like pushing against the weight of a hundred men all punching against a door. Each spark is a blow demanding release, but I push back and hold steady until my arm clears up to my elbow. I tentatively reach out to Cal's waistband where I know his pocket knife is. My eyes dart between his face and my nimble fingers disappearing into his front pock; they touch the tip of the blade's smooth metal hilt. I look up triumphantly to see Cal still sleeping, but my smirk disappears the instant Cal's hand wraps around my wrist. It's then his eyes open, alert and without a trace of sleep in them. "Give a guy some warning before your fingers get that close to-"

I cut him off with a crimson blush and higher octave. "You were supposed to be sleeping."

He grins adorably and rolls onto his back, my wrist still in his hand. It's not nearly as difficult as it was to keep the electricity beneath the surface of my entire body last night, but I still must concentrate to keep my hold from slipping while my hand is in his. He takes my fingers reverently in his, staring at them like they're new. "So what were you doing down there?"

I turn my face away to hide my red cheeks. It occurs to me I can't engage in any of the innuendo banter with him, let alone flirt openly, if I'm zapping all over. That gives me the push to tell him my plan outright and hope he'll go along with it.

"I need your knife."

"Okay..." he draws out, confused. "Why?"

"I'm going to cut this thing out of me."

That jolts Cal up instantly. "Absolutely not. Mare, we'll figure out another way."

I shake my head and draw my hand back. "Cal, there is no other way. We're running out of time. We're _wasting_ time. Every hour, every day with me incapacitated and you by my side is another moment Maven gets ahead. I'm not asking permission, Cal. If I went to Kilorn, he'd be all for it."

"Kilorn's a moron," he interrupts petulantly.

"What I'm getting at is that I will do it regardless. It needs to be done, and I can't risk hurting Ada, or anyone else for that matter. I can do this. Please, Cal."

With a long sigh, and a longer hard stare, he pulls the knife from his pocket and places it in my hand. He gives my fingers a squeeze and crosses his legs in a sitting positing next to me. I consider sitting up, but this will be easier if I don't have to worry about keeping myself upright. My shaky hands hover over my neck, and knife is trembling so badly in my hand that I almost drop it.

"Mare…" Cal whispers. I can hear the fear in his voice, but before his tone can get the better of my nerves, I stab the tip of the knife into the nape of my neck where I guesstimate the device to be, and I ruggedly drag it up in a jagged line at least two inches. Blood coats the inside of my mouth from the lip I've punctured between my teeth. I'm shaking so badly that my lightning intensifies, but I don't feel Cal move an inch beside me. I dig my fingers around the wound for it and finally grab hold of a tiny metal square with sharp edges. I clasp it tightly between my pointer finger and thumb, gasping and crying in relief when I've pulled it from my body and the electricity has stopped. Without it, I feel blood sliding in rivulets down the sides of my neck. Cal is on top of me before I can sit up. His knees are on either side of my hips and a one hand splayed across my throat, the other on the back of my neck, I feel something flat against my skin and realize it's the knife.

"Cal, wh—" I'm cut off by my own scream at the feeling of fire against my neck. I'm kicking and screaming against the grass, and Cal's hand quickly moves to my mouth to muffle my screams and begging for him to stop. What is he doing?! Tears pout out of my eyes and my heart thrums in panic, and as much as I kick and buck against Cal, he doesn't move. It's as though he's setting fire to that one spot. I hate him. Whatever he's doing, though I have no doubts in his intentions, I still hate him for doing it. I would suffer a thousand times the nonstop electricity pulling from my muscles than this torture.

When he's finished, he throws the now oddly-shaped knife to the side and collapses on top of me, my back to his front, mumbling apologies in my ear over and over. "I'm sorry, Mare. I had to close it. The wound was bleeding so much, we don't have stitches, and It was so deep. Shhh. I'm so sorry. Mare, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, my girl. I'm so sorry." I can feel his tears on my cheek, new extra-warm streaks that mix with my own. That helps soothe me, and I drag deep lungfuls of air into my chest to calm myself. I realize he closed the wound, using his knife and his heat. Dad's had a crude version of that done back when he was in the war. I'm not sure how that works, though by the feel of it, maybe it's too gruesome to find out. Cal's crying has long-stopped before mine does, but he never stops whispering his apology into my ear.

When I speak to him, my voice is hoarse and doesn't sound like my own. It sounds as broken and tired as I feel; there's not point in hiding it. "Take me to bed," is my soft request. I feel Cal nod against me. He slowly gets off me, and I roll over to get up on my own but fall miserably back to the ground.

"Hold on, I've got you," but before Cal reaches for me, he picks up the bloody device that's been plaguing me and holds it in his palm carefully. He looks at it, really looks at it, and at first I think he's going to melt it into nothingness. But his eyes grow wide and grave, and he looks at me with his mouth slightly ajar before turning to the now-defunct tiny square again.

"Cal, what is it? What's wrong?"

I watch Cal's hand close into a fist before my eyes find his sparking to life with amber and gold. His next words force me to my feet.

"This is a tracking device."


	9. Chapter 9

"I've got it! Go see if Ada has made any progress with the map."

Cal has refused to let me help him pack our things. Everyone has been tasked with getting their personal effects together, any supplies we need, and ready themselves for departure in 30 minutes. Cal would have rathered we left immediately, but with nowhere to go, we would be wandering into the open woods without a destination and no prior navigation. I asked for an hour to prepare everyone; he gave me half and his tone didn't allow for arguing.

I was still a disaster on my feet, knocking into things and breathing in such a way that caused a sharp painful stitch in my side. One of the new Newbloods, Lileth, offered to take a look as she was a former nurse in a Red community. She had this uncanny ability to alter people's feelings, but she had no idea what triggered it or how to control it.

"I could make it to where you don't notice the pain, I think," she lamented. "I just don't know how."

The promise of a pain-free retreat from the Notch had me implore into her ability. "When did it first start? How does it usually happen? What does your ability feel like inside you?"

She couldn't answer any of my frenzied questions with certainty, and we didn't have any time to test it out. She did assert my collarbone was only fractured and would have to heal on its own. My ribs, fortunately, were just bruised. Rest and taking it easy are what she instructed, and I snorted inside my own head at how far from both of those prescriptions I was. She took a look at Cal's handiwork on the back of my neck and only nodded solemnly. "It's not a pretty job, but cauterization rarely is I'm afraid. He saved you from infection, that's for sure. Looks like you gave yourself a nasty cut."

I get to Ada in the commons area poring over the map with Newbloods and Scarlet Guard all around. How she can concentrate in this chaos is beyond me. Most people are scared and jumpy, which do not make for a good mix with uncontrolled abilities. One boy managed to blow out a hole in the wall before turning a bright shade of red and putting it back together perfectly.

"Ada, any updates?" I ask quietly. I don't want everyone to know we're dragging them out of here without a plan. Cal suggested we not tell them we were followed here, but what he told them didn't alleviate any tensions. If we didn't have another safe house to go to, then we are going to have a riot on our hands.

Ada puts her head in her hands and shakes. I only just notice Kilorn with his arm wrapped around her shoulders, rubbing her temple and frowning at her sympathetically. Hm, Ada and Kilorn? I can't wrap my head around it, but I make a mental reminder to ask Kilorn about it later. "We're hundreds of miles from the nearest town. We may find another mining hideaway like the Notch, but it's a slim chance and I wouldn't know where to start. We can't send a few scouts out to look for an alternative place?"

I shake my head. "No time." With a sigh, I ask her to please keep looking. "Anything concealed, or something we can fashion into a hideaway." She nods as I leave her to the map and her few historical texts of Norta's geography.

I'm walking back through the halls to check on everyone's progress with packing up and give them a reminder to meet in the commons area soon. As I start to round a corner, I hear hushed voices which immediately catches my attention. Anytime people are whispering while alone in a hallway generally means it's something worth hearing.

_'It's just, why do we have to leave? We're already set up here and everything. We should have gone back to that other compound. At least the Guard up there know what they're doing.'_

_'I know. And Mare, man she's losing it. Did you see her outside yesterday? Word has it she lost all control of her ability and was sparking crazy all night. And she wants to train US? Ha, she can't even manage hers! How's she going to handle the kid that blows shit up or the girl that makes things disappear? We're all a bunch of accidents with a disaster and her Silver handler leading us.'_

_'Did you guys know she screams almost every night? My room is across from theirs, and every night she's screaming and crying and the prince tries to shush her down for what feels like forever. It's so annoying. Honestly I almost feel_ bad _for_ him _. Can you believe that? Feeling bad for a Silver? He killed his father, you know…'_

I'm frozen with my back against the wall around the corner with silent tears streaming down my face. The worry I had about everyone doubting us is more real than I assumed it would be. And what do they mean I scream every night? I don't remember that happening, and Cal has never mentioned it. Before I realize it, I'm pushing past the group, barely registering their surprised and ashamed expressions at having maybe been overheard. I storm into our room to see Cal trying to shove all our clothes into one overstuffed bag. I give him no time to ask what's wrong before I lay into him. "Why didn't you tell me I've been having nightmares? You've just been lying there next to me every night while I scream in my sleep and you don't think it's worth mentioning?" My chest heaves with heavy breathing and the pull of my muscles almost makes itself know in the form of a cringe, but I fight to keep my expression neutral as I wait for his answer. In truth, I don't even know why I'm asking him this. So what if I'm having nightmares? That's not unusual, and I rarely remember them in the morning. It's not like I could stop them anyway when I don't realize I'm having them. But I've already started raging and I intend to see it through.

"Mare, wh—Have you been crying?" He watches me purse my lips in defiance, so he turns back to his task. "We don't have time for this right now, Mare. What did you find out from Ada?"

I roll my eyes so extravagantly that he must feel it because his head whips around and he narrows his own flaming eyes at me. "Mare, what is wrong with you?"

I bark out a sharp laugh. "What's wrong with me? What's WRONG with me, Cal? Wow, where to start! I'm a Red girl from the Stilts, with nothing special about her except a Silver ability that feels more like a curse most days than a gift. My brother died in front of me _for me_. Other Reds, Newbloods, and Silvers have died because of _me._ Maven is no longer content with just killing me, no, he wants to torture and stalk me. There's a group of people standing around in the commons room who don't know what the hell I'm doing and neither do I. They think I'm crazy, and they don't think I'm capable of leading them, which is fine because I never wanted to lead these people. I wanted to save them from this world and ease this transition from finding out they're freaks to fitting in somewhere, somehow, and instead I'm getting them that much closer to their graves. And YOU! You're just standing there trying to shove clothes into a knapsack all wrong because you have no idea what it's like to be on the run, and you look miserable and tired most days and it's because I'm keeping you up with my nightmares and you never mentioned it!" I stomp over to the bag and pour everything out of it, ignoring his gasp of protest. I begin rolling the lighter items into tight cylinders and folding the heavier clothing into as little folds as possible to lay them flat in the bag.

Cal looks at me wide-eyed and glaring. I can tell he's trying to calm down by the way his fingers are twitching like mine do when my electricity threatens to make an appearance. He grits out through his clenched jaw, "No one thinks you're crazy." For a second there, it looks like he's trying to convince himself. The look disappears in an instant and I wonder if I saw it at all.

"Yeah well that's not what I overheard in the hallway," I mumble as I slowly deflate.

Cal takes a few tentative steps toward me and softens. "So you overheard someone else's gossip and ran to me?"

A blush creeps up my neck at his understanding of what just happened. "It's not all untrue is it." Annoyingly, it comes out like a pained whine in softer voice, "Why didn't you tell me I was having nightmares?"

He places his hand on my back and I tense, but I've learned by now not to pull away. He always notices the stiffness, but for my sake, he never says anything. Or maybe he just doesn't want to know, which is something we both have a bad habit of doing: running from defining whatever is going on between us. "Would it have changed anything if I did? As long as the nightmares weren't waking you, and they never have, I didn't want you to know. You always woke up every morning so tired but completely oblivious to your night terrors. I didn't want to put those thoughts in you if you weren't conscious of them already."

I cab only nod in defear, accepting his reasoning for what it was and dissolving the argument I'm too weary for anyway.

Cal looked over my shoulder, his close distance making my fingers tremble. He must think I'm crazy, and that's why he cares. I don't know what I feel for Cal, or what I want from him. We are both lonely, and we both could use each other to extinguish that loneliness. But what if there's more? And what if I bring myself to love him only to have him choose the kingdom of Norta, his birthright, his father's bestowed inheritance? I won't ask him to give that up for me again, not because it's unfair of me, though I recognize it is, but because I don't want to hear him tell me, after all of this, that his crown is worth more. That I've betrayed him too badly, stolen everything from him, and he could never love me the way I could love him.

Before I know it, the bag is packed perfectly, fitting all of our clothes and extra room for whatever else.

"Where did you learn that?" he asks me in a vaguely impressed whisper.

"Each time my brothers were called for conscription, I packed their bags for them. I just wanted to be sure they had all they would need." I shrugged to contrast the intensity of the confession, somehow make it weigh less by casually dismissing it.

I didn't look at Cal's face because I knew I'd see pity, and I detested the wasted feeling. Instead I rattled off Ada's update. "I told her to keep looking, but we can't expect to survive out there any better than we would if we stayed here and defended the Notch," I ended. "Between the Newbloods, we could deflect an incoming tack and hold our own, I think. And you destroyed the tracking device. Who's to say they can still find us?"

Cal shook his head. "We need to operate as though they have our location and it's Maven coming to find us. We can't take any chan—"

Cal is interrupted by Ada's shouting for the two us. We immediately sprint to the commons area to find her standing over the map with the radio clutched to her chest. She's beaming, and I'm relieved that for once, we may have some good news.

"Ada, what is it?"

"I was able to get in touch with Farley, and she grumbled a little because she was sleeping and she sounded like she was sick, but once I explained what happened she was all ears. You know she cares a lot more than she lets on—"

Cal's foot shakes in agitation as he sternly pulls Ada from her ramble. "Ada, the point. Get to the point."

"Right, sorry," she winces without irritation. "So we both looked over the map and she says there's mining tunnels all over, and probably one connecting the mines that were here in the old world to this place. It would have been sealed off long ago as the mining was depleted, but the connecting tunnels would still be here. So I looked at the infrastructure and found some history of the old mines plus what I remembered from school—"

"We never learned about the mines in school," I interrupted with a thought I didn't mean to speak aloud.

Kilorn snorted. "Mare, you attended what? Like five full days over the course of 15 years? They even thought you died one year because you never showed up to class once."

I scowl at Kilorn and make for a retort, but Cal holds up a hand effectively cutting me off with a sharp glare. He motions for Ada to continue.

"Okay so, like I was saying, we should have a small shaft that connects here to…well, anywhere. The mines connect to the underground judging by this map from one of the old transi—hey!"

Cal's pulled the map from her hands and stares at it so intently I think he might burn a hole in it. "You mean to tell me," he murmurs incredulously, "that we can get to the underground trains from here?"

Ada beams. "That's exactly what I'm telling you."

"Ada, you're a genius!" I compliment. Her smile grows wider until the corners of her mouth lift up her blushing cheeks.

"So how do we find the entrance to the shaft?" Kilorn asks. I watch him wrap his other arm around Ada as she relaxes into his embrace. It's so easy and effortless for them, and that bubbles up a pang of jealousy. They don't have politics and betrayals and power dynamics looming over their heads. Neither of them struggle to keep their abilities in check so they don't hurt one another. Rather than coexisting in that same space suffocated by misinterpreted feelings and unspoken truths, they can revel in whatever is building between them. They can sneak off to an empty room, or have stolen kisses between trainings, or just sit here comfortably together with no distance between them. The more I look I them, the more bitter my mouth tastes with the resentment I keep trying to swallow.

I silently make my way back toward one of the washrooms in the far back of the Notch and take in my appearance. My hair has grown out longer than I've ever had it before, down to the middle of my back. It's taken up a semblance of a curl too; loose waves that frame my face and might look pretty if it wasn't grey at the ends and always knotted. I try brushing it out with my fingers, but the frustration of snagging every tangle has me throwing it up in a knot at the top of my head. Doing that, however, shows off wicked scars down my neck, and I can't bear to look at them or have others stare. I roughly yank my hair back down and pick up a comb to work out the tangles. But as I do that, I laugh at how pointless the task is. My eyes still look haunted and deeply set by discoloration under my eyes from muscle strain and fatigue. My eyes are tired pools of dull brown, my complexion is lighter and ruddy from recent events. Imagine Cal took back the throne. Is _this_ the kind of girl he'd want next to him? Would I even _want_ to be next to him up there?

(...)

We're all gathered in front of what we turned into a closet space—a small recess in the wall that served no purpose other than storing gear. Cal has taken up the oblivion boy to get him to blow out the entrance and patch it up so whoever Maven has sent to follow us will never know we escaped this way. The rest of the Notch has been ransacked, making it look like we left in a hurry and have been gone for some time. Hopefully it throws the Silvers off our backs for a while. Once we get to the underground train, Farley has provided us with the location of an old, but secure base. It's several steps up from the Notch, but nowhere near as high-tech as Tuck Island. Everyone is excited to get there, and I'm glad this is an optimistic retreat for them. I was nervous they'd further doubt our lead if we couldn't develop a plan fast enough.

Everyone is outfitted with their pack, a couple canteens of water, and all of the older ones are armed with weapons Kilorn and Cal picked out for them. Most are better, and safer, with knives. The few guns we do have were given to Cal at the front, followed by Emander Macanthos, Kilorn, Ada, and Joshua. Emander, it turns out, is a childhood friend of Cal's. I haven't spoken to him at all, but Cal says he's always been fun and loyal. Apparently he got them into a lot of mischief growing up, and Cal was thrilled to be reunited with him, even if the circumstances of rescuing him from Corros were less than desirable. Newblood Joshua comes from Gray Town, and while his abilities aren't unique, it's the fact that he possesses two of them at once that makes him stronger than his Silver counterparts. Joshua is both a swift and strongarm, which explains his slight appearance, but make no mistake, every inch of him is pure superhuman strength. If the roof were to cave in on us, I'm willing to bet Joshua could hold it up before the first rock touched the ground until we were all out. Another Silver from House Laris, a windweaver, is given a gun. Finally, I have the last two guns and trail up the back of our formation. One weapon juts out from the back waistband of my pants, and the other rests heavily in my hands. I hate shooting these things, and while I'm a quick shot—quicker than Kilorn even—I still require some polishing in accuracy. The younger ones are tucked between the strongest ones of our groups and those who act as the little ones' caretakers; Nanny, the surrogate mom of the younger group, stands with the most meddlesome.

Once everyone is accounted for, the oblivion boy, whose name I have yet to learn, blasts a hole in the wall. Cal hunches down and steps in first, lighting a flame in his hand to make sure this is indeed a tunnel that will lead us somewhere. I can hear him shout from the other side of the wall, "All clear!" and it echoes a few times in such a depth that makes me uneasy.

Between Cal and I, we have enough light to guide us through the tunnels, but at the last minute I throw in a few lanterns and flashlights just to be safe. Cal has taken the majority of our load so I wouldn't be further weighed down as we made the uncertain journey. Since he's far enough ahead now, he won't notice I grabbed an extra bag of supplies. I gingerly put it over my injured shoulder and hiss when the strap pulls against my chest. Once I'm in, the oblivion boy patched up the way just as it was. To anyone else on the other side, it bears no difference to the walls surrounding it. I breathe a stilted sigh of relief as I know one obstacle is over, but more are sure to come.

(...)

We've been walking for what feels like hours, and realistically probably has been. The Silvers are not used to this much exertion, at least none of these save for Cal who's been at the war front and with the Guard long enough to know the toil. The Newbloods are running on fumes, too. I can tell Cal has slowed down just a fraction from his usual leading pace, so I can only assume this is wearing on him, too. We are still in the long, narrow stretch of tunnel that led from the Notch. Outside of the light Cal and I have provided, it's dark, damp, and smells murky and stifling. It's even colder down here than it is above, but the moisture in the air adds to a chill even deeper in the bones. The walls, from what I can tell from the shadows that play with my ball of electricity in my hand, are wet and jagged rock with tiny white flecks in them. They're dreary to look at and yet all I've had to look at besides the backs of everyone's heads. A few times I have slipped and fallen into them, scratching my hands and forearms are their rough edges. My body wants to collapse in leftover exhaustion from the days before, but I keep going, keep pushing ahead for no reason other than I do not want to give Cal a reason to worry about me.

Faintly I can hear conversations I hadn't noticed we're going on between most of our group, including Cal. Normally I am happy to be left with my own thoughts, but I miss Cal's warmth and dry banter with me. Ahead of me, he chuckles at something Emander has said. Emander gets a little louder and I can hear him naming Silver women. From the broken context, it sounds like girls they know. Maybe ones they dated? But Cal wasn't allowed a girlfriend as the Crown Prince, not until he was betrothed to Evangeline. Maybe his sneaking out went beyond just people-watching at the taverns. The thought irked me more than I care for, so I blocked out the rest of the conversation.

A short while later, I start to feel a nausea that gets increasingly worse as we move ahead. I notice the tiniest flicker in my ball of light, and I try desperately to cling to the memory of this feeling. I know it from somewhere. I've felt this exact way before but I can't place where. As we continue on, I look at everyone else to see if they notice it, but they're all too busy laughing and talking with one another, or otherwise too tired from the journey. I stop for just a moment to brace myself against the wall, promising to myself I'll run to catch up in just a second. While I've stopped, I close my eyes to push down the pressure in my chest. When I open my eyes, I'm a hairsbreadth away from the cavernous wall, finally placing those white flecks embedded in the walk. I scratch one off with my nail and examine it carefully. I've stood there long enough that the voices start to disappear, but at the same time I look up to see the group is no longer in sight, I recognize what this feeling is.

We're being surrounded by Silent Stone.

"Cal!" I frantically call out. I start to run ahead to catch up to them, but something catches my foot and I slam into the ground with a painful thud. I cry out as quietly as I can, clutching my shoulder, and scramble back up. I screamed for Cal again and was met with his panicked yell for me echoing off the walls. I ran again, careful to keep my heels off the ground so I wouldn't slip again. I met up with him as he just made it to the back of the formation.

"Mare, what—Your forehead is bleeding. What happened? Are you okay?"

I brushed his hands off me for a second, ignoring his disappointment at what he thought was rejection. "Cal, we're in a Silent Stone mine. It's everywhere! On the walls, on the ceiling above us. At first it was just little pieces in the walls, barely noticeable, but they're getting more frequent. Can't you feel them?"

Cal's brow furrowed as he tried to feel it out. I grabbed his wrist and jerked it in front of his face. "Look! The flame was four times as big when we first started. Try to make it bigger. Watch."

I couldn't tell if he was concentrating on a manipulating simple flame, but whatever he was doing wasn't working, he growled in frustration. I heard an unsavory curse slip from his lips as he looked around us.

"What are we going to do?" I breathed.

Cal shook his head and sighed, "We have to keep going. We don't have a choice."

"But Cal," I argued, "We aren't going to have abilities. We don't know how long this tunnel is, or what we'll find when we get there. We're defenseless."

He steeled against my last words, not appreciating the lack of confidence. "We aren't defenseless. You have a gun, I have a gun. They have guns and knives," he said, gesturing to the group. We'll fight if we need to, but Mare, no one else is down here. We haven't seen anyone for miles, and I guarantee Maven doesn't know about these. I had no idea these still existed in Norta."

I was unconvinced. He could sense this in my stiff posture. I wanted us to turn around, go back to the Notch and defend it with all we have. He wasn't even sure anyone could find us after he destroyed the device. Maybe we ran too prematurely.

"Mare, we have to keep moving forward. We'll be okay. It's opening up ahead, so we can walk closer together. You can walk ahead with me." He pressed his palm to me cheek and looked into my eyes in such a way that asked for my trust and compliance. I was the first to look away, uncomfortable with his heated gaze and his soft fingertips brushing against my temple.

"Alright," I whispered. I cringed as I pulled off the knapsack of lanterns and flashlights. He narrowed his eyes into a glare at the sight of the heavy bag, but I wasn't in the mood for a scolding. "Flashlights and lanterns. Just in case."

He lights the lanterns quickly, and I made quick work to charge all the batteries to their max. I walk ahead with Cal, handing out flashlights to every other person. "Use them sparingly, in shifts if you must."

"What happened? Tripping over your own feet again Mare?" Kilorn jokes. I roll my eyes at him, noticing the movement makes me eyebrow sting. When I rub the back of my hand against it, there's already blood drying at the cut.

"We're stepping into a Silent Stone mine," Cal announces. "This will cut you off from your abilities, and you may feel slightly sick or weary because of it. We just have to keep pushing through as quickly as we can until we find its end. Like Mare said, use your torches as little as you can. Stay close to one another. Do not," he emphasizes these words firmly, "under any circumstances deploy your weapons unless your are absolutely sure it is the enemy. It is easy to make mistakes in these environments, when your alert is peaked and the darkness surrounds you. Clear?"

Everyone nods with anxious glances around. We turn around and begin to lead the group, Cal and I together. While we're walking ahead, Cal leans into me until I feel his lips brush my ear. His warm breath wisps over my cheek in a feeling that is intoxicating. He takes my hand in his and intertwined our fingers with a gentle squeeze. "Stay close. Something doesn't feel right about this."

He lets go and the harsh chill surrounds me again, biting against the receding warmth of where he once was. I make a silent gulp and nod to let him know I heard him. I know exactly what he means.


	10. Chapter 10

_The hall fades to black and I'm sprinting toward the throne room, screaming for a name I don't recognize while tears pour freely down my face. The strangled sobs come out in chokes, the only sound I hear besides the billowing of my extravagant dress._ I'm too late _, I fear. When I reach the throne room, Cal is kneeling on the platform and Maven stands with his back to me in front of Cal. Cal's eyes widen just a fraction when he sees me, and with the slightest tilt of his head to the side, he's silently telling me not to make myself known. He's eyes are deep and remorseful, but they look at me with love and something peculiar. Acceptance, I think. He knows what is coming, as do I. Everything seems to stop. Hope leaves my body in noiseless huffs like baby's breath. This is it. It's just like I had seen._

_I notice the sword in Maven's hand, raised at Cal's throat, and in a split-second of blind panic, I scream Maven's name. Maven looks over his shoulder and has the bastardous gall to smirk at me. I want to rip his throat out. To spray his Silver blood at my toes and taint it with a spit of my Red blood. I want this nightmare to end. Maven sets the floor on fire in front of me, creating a wall between us, keeping me trapped between the door and the scene I already know the conclusion to. With a clench of my fist and staring deadly into his eyes, Maven shrieks and the sword falls with a loud clang to the gleaming polished floor. My fingers tremble, and I hear scuffling on the other side, where Cal has tackled Maven and the two erupt in figures aflame. I let my grip go when I can no longer see Maven and step toward the fire wall, but realize it's too tall and too hot. I frantically look for any way around it, but it stands flickering menacingly, and I am stunted with the memory that I might watch Cal die. After all this, after everything we've been through, I may see his final moments behind a fence of fire. The smoke catches in my throat but I'm coughing through it while crying for Cal._

_"Get out of here, Mare!" I can hear Cal's yell mumbled and straining underneath what I assume is Maven's weight._

_"No! I won't leave you!" My tears sting my eyes and blur my vision but still I stand._

_Cal growls and pushes Maven's flames near me. "Mare, GO!"_

_I stumble several steps back toward the door, where Cal is trying to push me out. Jerk. How can he expect me to run away? I've run all my life, and he's always been there to catch me. If I run now, he won't be there waiting._

_I rip my overskirt off and throw it over my head as a sort of cloak._ What are you doing, what are you doing? _It's the mantra in my head I try to ignore as I take a few steps back and do the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life, but my life is with him and I gave up denying this long ago. I catch Cal's eye as he struggles with Maven, and if running through fire doesn't kill me, Cal definitely will judging by scorching glare. I steel myself with a breath and charge forward to the sound of the two brothers screaming my name._

I gasp, still tasting the smoke in my mouth and the burning in my throat.

"Mare, did you hear me?"

I turn to Cal, whose sidelong look is staring at me curiously. I shake my head from the weird dream. Falling asleep while walking. That's a new one, even for me. "Sorry. Tired," I explain. It's only a half lie.

"We'll stop soon. Set up for the night."

I nod at Cal next to me, too tired to give him an actual response.

"How's your shoulder?"

"Fine," I mumble wearily. The truth is my whole body aches and feels like wiggly and unstable, but I'm not about to tell him that. The flashlights have long-since drained, leaving us with nothing but the two lanterns barely holding their flames in the moist air.

I can feel Cal looking over it me skeptically, and I catch his look with one of exasperation. "It's not polite to stare," I remark.

His raises a brow at my bite. "It isn't polite to lie, either."

I give him silence back and ignore his sigh. I can't explain my mood change, and as much as I want to chalk it up to exhaustion and pain, there's something else here that is putting me out of sorts. It's been like this as we walked deeper into the Silent Stone, and it isn't just the normal suffocation of being without my ability. It's angrier and violent, but it's not my own. I can't shake it, and now that I've noticed it, there's no ignoring it.

"I feel it too," Cal murmurs.

I whisper in case the others don't recognize what's going on around them. "What is it?"

Cal shakes his head. "I don't know."

A whisper of wind comes through, but it's not something we would've felt. We do, however, see the effects of it once the dying lanterns flicker out and plunge us into darkness.

"Neat," I say aloud, dripping in annoyed sarcasm.

Not one to be outdone, Kilorn shouts from the back, "Oh cool! I was wondering when everything would turn from shit to worse shit."

Nervous chuckles bounce of the walls that suddenly feel tight and threatening without any light to distinguish our whereabouts. "We are so screwed," I whisper to Cal, but I suddenly feel his absence next to me. It's a feeling that is worse than the dark, and I scramble around me with my hands waving wildly ahead trying to find him. "Cal!" I hiss. There's no answer.

The panic boils in my stomach, threatening to spill my insides or steal my lungs, but I try to keep calm so as to not scare the group behind me. I walk faster ahead, knowing I'm distancing the group by an unsafe length should I be going the wrong way, but before I can all but shout his name, Cal's hands grasp my elbows. I make to scream at the sudden jolt of it, but he quickly senses my panic and shakes some sense into me. "Mare, it's me! It's me!"

I hug him tightly without thinking about it, and this must catch him off guard because he doesn't return the embrace before I've pulled back, embarrassed by my reaction. "Where did you go?" I ask accusingly. "You can't wander ahead like that."

"This narrow tunnel opens into an atrium; that's where the new air came in and knocked out the lanterns. Better, it's free of Silent Stone."

While I can't see it, I can hear Cal's relief in his explanation. Suddenly I hear a laugh behind my shoulder that has me pressing myself into Cal's chest.

"Alright, Cal! Always leading us to bigger and better places!" It's Emander, who sounds like he could be talking with his buddy at the taverns instead of in a pitch black underground cave made of Silent Stone while running from Maven and his army. I hear him clap Cal on the back, and with an eyeroll, I extract myself from Cal and take off ahead of him. It's a couple turns here and there, but in less than a few minutes I'm standing in an open clearing that can comfortably fit our group. It's no royal palace, but it's better than the tight tunnels we've been crammed in all day.

The clearing itself is like an atrium as Cal described it. The ceiling extends so high that I cannot tell where it ends, but there's no light coming in from above, which tells me we must be deeply underground. I throw a ball of lightning up and see the ceiling is made of several sharp points that extend down toward us. They are like rocky icicles, and I'm in momentary awe at something so real and natural that I've never seen before. It's different than the wonder I feel in Archeon and Summerton. There, you can feel the presence of Silver perfection; a perverse display of power and wealth meant to showcase their superiority in glittering forms of diamondglass and elite architecture. Every swirl, every smooth step, every gleaming too-bright surface. All of it is artificial and cold. Not like this. This is older, more powerful than what the Silvers could ever achieve. This is an ancient display of wealth the Silvers couldn't even begin to understand. It's nature, growing and forming on its own without the manipulative, destructive eye of hungry Silvers. Down here, blood status does not matter. The underground was not built on blood but by something bigger than all of us.

Around the atrium are several tunnels like the one we just came from. I wonder if they're all lined in Silent Stone, or where they may lead. It occurs to me we will have no way of knowing which one leads to the abandoned base Farley mentioned. Realistically these could lead anywhere, with days of travel and unknown dangers we aren't prepared to face.

The rest of the group makes it in and there's a warm collective sigh that makes me smile for the first time all day. By some miracle, we got everyone here safely, and while it's cold and musty in here, it's by far a better option than sleeping in unclosed woods with Silver threats looming all around us. I'm very confident no Silver, besides our own that we took with us, would wander down here without cause, and we didn't leave any breadcrumbs back at the Notch to give them one.

People start unpacking their bags for sleeping gear and food rations and begin setting up their modest camps. We have a moderate amount of space between us all, but by no means is this the privacy of the Notch. Some disappear into the Notch tunnel with newly lit lanterns or charged flashlights that Cal and I have repurposed; I notice they all return fairly quickly with a bit of a shudder, and I wonder if they feel the same unease as I did in there.

After everyone is settled in, Cal pulls together Kilorn, Ada, Emander, and I onto the far side of the atrium to discuss tomorrow's plans. We speak in hushed whispers, not wanting our developments to leak into rumors among a tired and jumpy mass. Rumors here spread faster than Cal's flames—something I'd learned the hard way one day when an overheard argument between Cal and I evolved into one of us getting kicked out of the Guard and having a fight-to-the-death match to choose which one of us it'd be.

"We set up tonight and let everyone get much-needed rest, but tomorrow we need to be back on the move," Cal begins without any fanfare leading in.

"I think we should keep most people here," I quietly speak up next. I'm not confident in my voice in this dialogue, but with Farley and Shade gone, there's no one else speaking on our behalves, Reds and Newbloods. "We don't know where any of these tunnels will lead. We have to know what we're walking into before we take everyone out of here."

Ada and Kilorn nod. Emander looks to Cal, like the good soldier and friend. If Cal should blast our way to the surface, I have a feeling Emander is the type to to shout, 'Great idea!' with back claps and high fives. Whatever male bonding crap goes on between Silver soldiers with no real fears and no real risks. For some reason it irks me. Cal seems to chew over my words before turning to Ada. "Ada, do you have any idea which of these tunnels would lead to the base?"

Ada shakes her head. " I can do some mapping based on Farley's coordinates, try to calculate the distance from the Notch's tunnel to where the base should be and narrow them down some. But even then, it's a best guess. Nothing definitive."

"You'll work on that tomorrow, then. In the meantime, we will split into pairs and scout the tunnels first thing in the morning. Maybe there's more to the underground than we realize. Get some rest and we'll reconvene tomorrow."

Everyone breaks except Cal, who is in soldier-mode going over plans and weighing pros and cons in the small notebook he jots in. I've never read it myself, having no interest in it, but he spends a good amount of time writing in it and reading through it every night, before and after every meeting, and first thing in the mornings. It's what makes him such an effective leader: his ability to plan and organize; he doesn't take any decision lightly or make them rashly. Not like me, who goes with gut instincts even when they're wrong. Who knows when to run, whose nerves sing to her when trouble approaches. It's one of the starkest contrasts to Cal and me in our fighting styles. Cal forges ahead, pushing through with power, strength, and tactics he's studied all his life. He is confident and sure of himself. Whereas I observe every detail around me, remain obscure as long as I can, and stay quick on my feet.

It's what Maven and I shared. We were born in the shadows and we learned to thrive there. We see the things no one else sees. We bend the rules. We don't fight fair. The darkness becomes who we are.

That's the thing about us shadows; we are constantly running from the light. And something tells me that Maven, the former shadow of Norta, won't be able to survive the bright red intensity of the coming dawn much longer.


	11. Chapter 11

When everyone has gone to sleep, I stay up with my back against the wall. It hurts too much to sleep on the cave floor with my still-wrecked body, and I reminisce about my bed back home in the Stilts-a cot really, but familiar and home. Or the bed at the Summerton palace. Now that one was luxurious and soft and all things a bed should be, but it was strangely cold. All the plushest bedding in Norta, and sleep was still fraught with emptiness and bone-chilling fear at what I'd get into the next day. Sleeping next to Cal has been my only reprieve in all this, but there are things gnawing at me that keep me from him lately. Like Shade, and how he helped save my life. I'm still convinced he's something in my head, but then how did Cal get the cycle? And if Shade is alive, why can't he come back? Why can't he stay with us and help us?

I shiver at the chill in the open room, having given up my own blanket to Nanny, who'd given her blankets to the children. Cal sleeps some distance away from the rest of the group, never one to immerse himself in with the people who mostly still resent him, even if they aren't sure why anymore and even when they know the truth. For a while I'm transfixed by the sight of his back rising and falling with every breath. Listening closer, I can hear the soft rumble of his snoring. I smile and shake my head at the sound. He can swear up and down all day that he doesn't do it, but I would know better. I've never watched him sleep without me before. When I'm next to him, he sleeps on his side so I can curl into him if I'd like. I don't always; in fact, most nights I fall asleep on my side with my back to him, but not touching him. Inevitably, though, I always gravitate toward him in my sleep until I'm tucked in closely to the hard planes of his body, his legs coming up to wrap around mine, his arm draped lazily over my stomach, his mouth at the top of my shoulder, his warm breath against my neck.

When I shiver this time, it has nothing to do with the cold.

I look away to chastise myself when out of the corner of my eye I see a figure move in the dull lantern light in one of the tunnels. _Shadows see shadows._ I feel my fingertips buzz and slowly stalk around the edge of the wall leading to the tunnel, careful not to wake Cal or the others, but particularly Cal—a soldier sleeper whose eyes fly open when I so much as sniff. Fortunately, I'm deadly silent—and fast—on my feet.

When I reach the tunnel, I take a few steps in, always with my back to the wall and my hands at the ready to electrocute the first thing that pops out at me. Maybe not the best strategy, but the only one I have in this solo midnight adventure. With the glow from the lantern completely gone now, I'm immersed in the dark. With a flashlight tucked in my back pocket just in case, I let a spark dance on the tip of my pointer finger like a candle, but it barely illuminates anything. For me, however, it's enough. I see the edge of a foot a few feet from me and throw the spark in that direction. It hits a solid mass with a hiss from the target, and I take that cue to charge at it only to hit the wall. "FU-!"

A hand clamps over my mouth to muffle my curse but before I can claw at it, Shade's voice is against my ear. "You are the disaster of surprise!" he hisses at me.

I scramble away from him, and pull up another few sparks on my fingertips until my eyes adjust. They're even weaker here, which must mean this tunnel also is surrounded by Silent Stone.

"Geez, Shade! Since when did you become one for dramatic entrances?"

He holds his hand out to pull me off the ground, then immediately tucks it into his arm to walk further into the tunnel.

"If you're still trying to convince me you're the real Shade, this is a really crap way to do that," I mumble at his comfortable embrace skeptically.

Shade simply rolls his eyes at me and smiles. From the side, I can see he's aged a bit more, with flecks of grey at his temple near a scar I don't ever remember being there. "Can't a brother walk with his little sister?"

I scoff. "Yeah, sure he can. Unless he's a Barrow, and particularly if his name is Shade. Also known as 'the dead one.'" It's a quip I make in jest, but it still catches my throat like a knife anyway.

"Gotta get over this whole 'dead' thing, sis. I have."

"You try watching your sibling die," I mumble.

His hand squeezes over mine tightly, instinctively, and I watch his eyes glass over. I want to ask, but something tells me to drop it.

"Where are you taking me?"

He slow down a bit, scanning the black walls to either side until he comes to an abrupt stop. "Here."

With my lightning almost completely dim, I flick on the flashlight and wave it on either side of us. Shade is looking at something severely, almost painfully, but it's nothing particularly fascinating. The way he looks at it though has my heart in my throat. "Cool," I say for some levity. "A wall." Anything to make him smile and take that pained grimace off his face.

He turns his head toward me to show the corners of his mouth have lifted into a small smile. "You figured it out, genius." Then, he looks back at the wall solemnly. "Can you feel that?"

I think about smarting back to him just because I can, and I'm tired and annoyed at having traveled in here when I should be sleeping, but just when I think he's getting a kick out of my foolishness, I notice how thick and heavy the air has become. I can feel it around me like I did in the Notch's tunnel.

"Wh-what _is_ that?"

Shade drops my hand and points to a single stone in the wall. This one, I notice, is smoother than the others. Rounder edges and a softer, paler face than the rest of the rough jagged rock around it. This one looks like it was placed here intentionally. "Touch it," he instructs quietly.

I look at Shade nervously, but it's Shade's honeyed eyes like they always were. Warm and loving, honest and trustworthy. Flexing my fingers a few times, I reach out to the stone and brush my fingertips against it.

_I spear a piece of fruit in front of me with a polished silver fork, the name of the pale green edible familiar to my tongue, I think, but absent from my mind. Without knowing why or even meaning to, I laugh at the little boy sitting across from me as he says a string of sentences that run together and muddle in intonation. I quirk a brow at Cal, sitting to my right, and he laughs with a shrug. He has no idea what the little one has said either, and judging by how casual and comfortable Cal seems, he's used to not knowing._

_"Eat your breakfast, Tan."_

_On the grand oak table before me, Cal sets down a plate he's just rewarmed in his hands. I cut up the sausages into small bite-size pieces, listening to the boy named Tan whining that he can do it himself. "I know you can, but mothers like to do this, too." The words come out of my mouth on their own, but there's a conscious part of me that doesn't know where they came from._

_Cal kisses me at my temple while I push the child's plate to him and Cal fills the now-empty space with a full plate of my own. The affectionate gesture makes the little boy cringe playfully next to us. "Yack!"_

_Cal laughs and kisses my cheek to elicit another reaction from the boy. Sure enough, he dramatically falls to the side, tucking his head under the table._

_I use the opportunity to kiss Cal firmly on the lips, with my tongue ghosting at the seam of his mouth, wanting more. He tips me back in my chair and returns the kiss with fervor. His hands hold either side of my head, stroking into my hair, undoing the neat and elegant updo it was previously arranged for…for some important event today. One I should remember but don't. Cal's tongue pushes at mine, and I almost startle at how he kisses me. When his teeth catch my bottom lip, I nearly come undone underneath him, but I keep my body firmly planted in the chair to keep from jumping all over my husband._

_My husband! Since when—_

_Suddenly I hear Tan scrambling and talking fast again from underneath the table and the two of us break the kiss before he really goes into tailspin._

_He's looking at us wide-eyed and glowing; big brown eyes and dark hair, bouncy cheeks with freckles and a button nose that I vaguely recall smushing my nose against. I expect him to be annoyed with our morning displays of affection, a new phase he's come into, but he just shakes his head and smiles at us before grabbing his plate and pulling it toward him._

_"Slowly, Tanner. It's not a race," I tell him as he dives into his breakfast._

_His eyes twinkle at me and I'm smiling warmly at him. The warmth that radiates in my body feels so much like Cal's, but I know it's not. This one comes from within me, from deep in my womb where the innocent creature in front of me once was. I don't know how I know that, but I do. So deeply within my soul I feel connected to this child and know he is mine. "Mare, darling? Are you sure you want to go out today? Lady Skonos said you should—"_

Suddenly I'm jerked back into reality where damp musty cave walls enclose me and Shade stands with his hand on my shoulder. I'm breathing in quick gasps until those turn into deep heaving for air. My hands fly to my neck where I feel like I might be choking, but Shade rubs my back and shushes me. I only just realize I'm sobbing and this is a panic attack that I've seen on my mom a dozen times.

"What-" I squeeze my eyes shut against the nausea rolling through me. "What was-how-" But I can't stop the sobs over whatever that was or why it's had such a profound effect on me. "Was that...was that real?"

Shade continues to soothe me until I'm now inhaling through my nose, out through my mouth like I would instruct my mom. "It's a memory," he finally replied when I'm calm. " _Your_ memory."

"I don't understand." I fall slowly to the ground and wipe the last of the tears streaming down my cheeks. My throat burns, not from the panic, but from the vision. How real and calm, and-and how beautiful everything was. How the little boy beamed at me. How Cal kissed me like old lovers.

"Mare, what you saw, what you felt, that was a memory from your future. One that you placed here, so that you could find it."

"How is that possible? Is that another ability I have?"

"Not quite. Everything in this world evolves in the darkness, Mare, even stone."

I try to piece what little vague details Shade has given me into something coherent. "So Silent Stone, it—what? Takes memories? Like it it takes away our abilities?"

Shade shakes his head. "Silent Stone doesn't _take_ , Mare. It absorbs. It absorbs like a living thing. It can't take what's inside of you, what's a part of you. But the Silent Stone down here hasn't had anything to absorb in thousands of years, so it evolved. In the future, it absorbs your memories, and you placed them down here for you, in this time, to find."

"How did I know I'd find them?" Shade doesn't respond immediately, so my brain takes a stab at filling in the gaps. "You helped her. Me. Future me. You helped future me to put these here so I would find them now? You really can move between time. Not just place, but _time,_ Shade." But if he can move across time…

"You can take me with you. To that future, right? Where Cal and I are together, and Cal is King again, and where our…our son is. Oh my god, Shade. I have a son. You've seen him? Can you take me there?"

Shade shakes his head, and the disappointment cuts me deeply. "I can't bring you with me in time travel, Mare. It's physically impossible to carry someone with you. Time-traveling itself…well, it ages you faster. And it's dangerous, Mare. More dangerous than you could ever imagine. We aren't meant to know the future, to change the future. You aren't meant to act on it, because it circumvents itself. Every decision you make from here on out will change the memory you just saw. Everything you do now will alter the future, like a ripple effect. You throw a rock into the lake, and those ripples grow wider, and they turn into waves, and the waves disrupt the life beneath the surface."

"So then why would I leave that for myself? Why show myself anything at all if everything I do now will change it?"

"Because you wanted to change it for the better, Mare." Shade takes my hand for whatever he's about to say next, which must be bad because he can't look me in the eye when he says it. "You saw another memory. Earlier today?"

I nod, remembering Maven's sword at Cal's throat and my jump through the fire.

"Cal doesn't survive in your future, the one you've sent back to yourself to see now. And the fire…Mare, it nearly burns you alive like. It incapacitates you and Maven keeps you like that, locked in the castle, unhealed, with your son he claims as his in a kingdom he reclaims as his. He massacres the Scarlet Guard. He enslaves the Newbloods."

My voice is a rasp, harsh whisper fighter against tears forming again. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because only you can stop it, Mare. The Scarlet Guard, Cal, and the Newbloods and Silvers you've recruited, they can make ripples. They can carry the torch of a revolution that will change the minds and hearts of a nation so that Norta truly does become the Light of the World. But you, Mare, are the rock. You can make waves."

The heavy weight of this burden crashes onto me like it did back when the world first discovered I was different. No longer am I the face of a rebellion. I'm the war. "What do I do?" I'm almost afraid to ask, but to save Cal, and to save our future, I must.

"You have to kill Maven."

"Done," I answer, without skipping a beat. That's what we were planning to do anyway, right?

"It has to be you, Mare. Only you _can_ do it."

I ponder his word choice, his emphasis on 'can'. Because I'm stronger? I'm not stronger than Cal, am I? Regardless, my answer is the same. "I'll do it."

Shade continues. His voice is deep and so terribly sad, as though the distant memory he carries with him is no different from the brand I carry with me. "There's one more."

"Anything," I whisper urgently. "I'll do anything for them."

Shade nods, I guess knowing I'd say that, and likely already predicting my reaction to his next words.

"When the time comes, you have to leave Cal."


	12. Chapter 12

**The shuffling of feet wakes me with a start, and the first thing I notice is that Mare is nowhere nearby. I scan the sleeping group around us quickly, but I would recognize her sleeping form anywhere. First of all, she breathes so damn loudly when she sleeps on her back, which she almost always does when I'm not with her. She also stretches her short self to the fullest extent and sleeps with her hands above her head, a position which has led to some embarrassing dreams since the first time I found her sleeping alone in our bed. Fortunately, she also sleeps like the dead, which means I always wake up before her, always, and she never notices the effects of my dreams. I can only imagine how painful her knee-to-groin aim would be if she did.**

**In the seconds I notice Mare's absence, I locate the shuffling feet attached to the form of Emander making his way to one of the cave's tunnels. He's fully dressed and looks to be on a mission, something I find odd for one of my former legion soldiers. I may no longer be his superior in any official capacity, but he's always been the type of loyal friend to come to me first for the decision-making. I'll need to tell him not to wander off on his own around a group of already skeptical Reds. When I reach the entrance of the tunnel, I light a weak flame in the palm of my hand to alert Emander of my presence. I call out his name in a whisper to further avoid startling him.**

**Emander jumps and looks genuinely surprised, almost frightened to see me. "Cal! Man, you nearly scared the stone out of my skin. What are you doing up?"**

**"What are _you_ doing up?" I counter. "You shouldn't be walking these tunnels alone, Macanthos. Have you seen Mare? She isn't in the atrium."**

**"Well your second question answers the first." He points down the dark tunnel. "She's gone in here."**

**A mix of emotions roil through me. Fear, anxiety, stress, lividity. _Why the hell_ would she do something so stupid as walk a mysterious tunnel at night and alone? Does she have no regard for her safety? "You saw here come in here?" Without waiting for an answer, I take off at a brisk walk before I start sprinting. Emander, who is bulkier and heavier, can hardly keep up.**

**I hear her before I see her, talking aloud and sniffling. The sound of her voice sends my blood cold and has me running faster toward her. She sounds broken and hollow, and like she's been crying. But who is she talking to? I can't hear a second voice, nor can I make out what she's saying. It sounds like incoherent mumbles, but the few words I can understand as I get closer send another rush of cold through my veins.**

**' _Shade…. Can't do this. ..please…another way…I can't…stay. Just stay.'_**

**I swallow past the hard knot in my throat just as Emander catches up to me. "Is that Mare?" he whispers. "Who is she speaking with?"**

**I shake my head, partially because I don't know the answer but also because I don't want him to think she's talking to her dead brother or that she's gone crazy. I know Mare has been a little distant lately since Shade died, maybe even a little before that after we escaped the Bowl of Bones, but this was something else entirely. It reminded me of some of the front line soldiers who would start to crack after the things they saw and did in the name of war: hearing voices, seeing the dead, lashing out at comrades, turning violent on themselves. Sometimes it became so bad we would have to pull them from the line and send them to a facility far north, where they almost never returned. Truthfully I should have seen something like this coming. For as strong and brave as Mare is, she's also sensitive to others. She takes on others' losses and pains, she holds onto grief and sadness, and she capitalizes on them with the burden of responsibility that was unfairly placed on her shoulders by my Uncle Julian. Mare may have been made to spark a rebellion, but she wasn't made to withstand its war.**

**"Mare?" I ask aloud, tentatively. She goes silent then, and after a few sniffles I hear her soft voice again. "Cal?"**

**"Mare, Emander and I coming toward you." I tell her this to keep from startling her should she throw a few bolts of lightning our way. Even though the Silent Stone is weaker here, I've felt the power of even the smallest jolts out of her fingertips, and I don't care to try it out again.**

**When I get to her, she's sitting on the ground with her knees bent and her head resting on one of them. There isn't anyone around her, something I'm relieved and nervous to find. She looks a mess—the stress of today's trip and this week's events have dulled her once-vibrant skin. Her beautiful big brown eyes are rimmed red and puffy. Her nose looks bright and sore, and her cheeks have some shine from being wet. Her hair is a disarray, which isn't in and of itself unusual these days, but it isn't her usual 'I'm too busy fighting for my life to give a fuck' look. She looks like a shell of herself. A tattered Mare body with an even more tattered Mare spirit.**

**I crouch down beside her and gently pull her hair off of her face. "Mare," I whisper so only she can hear, "what are you doing here?"**

**She struggles to swallow before she responds. "I couldn't sleep…bad dream so I, I got lost in here, and it was so dark, and-and the Silent Stone." She starts to tear up again and looks up as if to stop the tears from spilling over, so I take her into my arms, noticing her body is shivering and freezing. She must have become frightened she'd wind up stuck in here, which she very well could have if Emander hadn't found her. How long has she been in here? I lift her as I stand, holding her to my chest and leading us out of the tunnel until the weight of the Silent Stone is off and I can replenish her warmth quicker. Emander gives us privacy by extinguishing one of the two night lanterns lighting the atrium. It's dark enough on our side that no one can see us, but I step in the mouth of a tunnel to conceal us further. When I set her down onto her wobbly feet, I lift my shirt over my head and throw it over my shoulder. She leans forward onto my chest to steady herself, still shivering and weak on her feet.**

**Making my intentions known, I grab the hem of Mare's shirt and feel her nod against my shoulder. She leans back slightly and raises her arms so I can pull her shirt up and off her. I quickly replace it with mine, grateful for dark that keeps my eyes from lingering anywhere they shouldn't. But on the adverse end, the limited light means I have to feel my way around more. My hands trail down her arms, my thumbs skim the curve of soft skin between her elbow and her shoulder. When my shirt is on her, my hands move to her sides to caress carefully from her ribs to her hips over and over. I tell myself it's to warm her, which is true, but not totally true. I just want to feel her. To know she's here and safe, and so long as she's here, I can stop whatever monsters are eating away at her.**

**Her dainty sniff is the only noise in the silence, though I swear I can hear my heart pounding in my ears. I feel Mare's hands move to the front waistband of her pants. These she wears with her almost every day since she discovered them back at the training sessions in Summerton. They're a hybrid soft black leather with some stretch that hugs her hips and legs tightly to allow for agile movement. They're standard issue for all the girls, but I never really noticed them until I saw Mare in them. She loves them so much that she stole two of them from the Scarlet Guard base, and she's always asking the scouts on supply runs to be on the lookout for them.**

**"Cal?" she whispers for the second time, to my embarrassment. Even though she can't read my thoughts, I blush at them anyway.**

**"Can you grab my sleeping shorts?"**

**I must hesitate because then she huffs, "I won't go anywhere, promise."**

**I walk over to our bag in the atrium to grab the cotton shorts she wears to bed. She tends not to dress in very much in the evenings, complaining that my heat is almost too warm as it is. It makes me smile as I recall the nights she's shoved me in her sleep and tells me to dial down the temperature before I cook her like a royal pig. Thought her language is a bit more colorful when she's half-asleep and grumpy.**

**When I get back, she's standing there with bare legs all the way up to…I shake my head and clear my throat, hoping she hasn't seen me looking at her that way. It's not that I don't want Mare; obviously, I want Mare. But I don't know if she wants me to want her, or if she even wants me, and the truth is, wanting each other doesn't make our circumstances any easier. It'll complicate everything and could be an epic distraction in a time where we needed to focus the most.**

**But because the world is ironic, I do something so idiotically opposite of what I should be and hold her shorts open for her to step in. She looks at me with a vbrow raised—I both love and hate that damn look—and steadies her hands on my shoulders. Her legs wobble some, but she steps in and qvuickly moves to pull the garment up herself.**

**"You should've eaten more than a few bites of soup," I tell her when I see how shaky and weak she is.**

**Mare immediately crosses her arms over her chest and leans back a bit to size me up. She's little, but the girl can pass a deadly glare like none other. "Sorry, Mom. Didn't realize you were watching."**

**And because I couldn't be more of an asshat if I tried, I reply coolly, "Wouldn't need to if you cared about your own damn self."**

**If she's surprised by my going toe-to-toe with her, it only passes across her face so instantly I barely register it. Mare grew up with brothers, and she won't be subdued so easily.**

**"Right, because I asked Maven to electrocute me damn near to death."**

**"You didn't, and I don't begrudge you for that, but not sleeping, not eating, and wandering into a fucking tunnel alone at night, Mare?! That's just stupid."**

**I watch her jaw clench and feel mine ticking as well, and for a moment I watch her shoulders rise and fall and I brace myself for her to hit me. If she does, I'll have to stop her, not because she doesn't deserve it but because I can see her breaking her hand worse than she'd break my nose. But then her eyes become glassy and before the softening of my demeanor registers from my brain to my expression, she's thrown herself against me and crashes her lips into mine. I catch her just in time before her momentum knocks us both over, screaming at my mouth to catch up to hers and fighting through the urge to pull her up and around me. When her fingers swirl into my hair she brings me down to her, curving my body against hers and arching her back in such a way that my hand flattens against the small of her it to keep her pressed firmly against me. I nip at her bottom lip and she mewls at the sensation. That has to be the sexiest sound I've ever heard from her, so I do it again and again for good measure until I can memorize it for weeks to come. Eventually she catches on, maybe because I smirked against her mouth the fourth time she did it, and she growls low in the back of her throat so the vibrations of it roll wickedly over my tongue and travel as far south as it needs to, and _we have to stop_. Her breathing becomes rhythmic panting, and _we have to stop, make her stop_ I shout to myself, but I can't stop her. She's a woman on an urgent, desperate mission, and I don't understand it but I don't want it to end.**

**She's the first to break anyway, and I watch her wide-eyed and slightly uneasy as she gasps like there's no tomorrow. I catch a pained look in her eyes but she quickly looks away to hide it. I wonder if she wanted me to offer her more? Did I not reciprocate enough or was she expecting...different? I don't get what she wants, but I don't get the chance to ask her before her eyes capture mine and hold me so strongly I feel frozen where I stand. She takes my breath away like this. This is the Mare I know and want every minute of every day: lively, intense, soft and feminine, strong and stronger-willed. And when she looks at me this way, I know she's really the leader here. She looks at me like she knows me inside out—my past, my present, my future. All exposed to her and all hers for the taking, whether I want her to or not.**

**"I'm tired," she whispers, and it's all I can do to nod in acquiescence. I take her hand in mine, somewhat surprised that she allows it, and we both curl into each other the same way we do every night, only everything about it feels inexplicably different.**


	13. Chapter 13

I wake well into the day—I know this because somewhere in the background, Nanny is telling one of the kids to finish lunch if they want to go exploring. I keep my eyes shut and listen to the world around me like Shade used to do, but unlike Shade who did it to eavesdrop, I'm not ready to face the world just yet. I haven't processed what happened between Cal and I, but each time I get anywhere close to thinking about us and our kiss, my head swims with thoughts from every direction. Every time the voice in the back of my head warns we need to keep our distance, I want to scream at it in frustration. I KNOW. I know we don't need the complication of being together, whatever that means, and there's so much broken trust between us that I started, that I lit the match to burn the bridge between us. But I've literally seen our future. Not a figment of my imagination or a wayward fantasy dream, but an actual memory from my future to know Cal and I can make it work. I don't know how we get from here to there, but we did. We managed to get there and have a child together, no less. And now that I've seen it, knowing that I've felt him in a way I never thought I would have, I don't know how to let go.

' _The future isn't set in this stone_ ,' Shade told me. ' _It's fluid. It moves and changes course and each step you take from here on out will change that memory. None of this is guaranteed. None of it may exist now that you know of it, because you're going to change everything._ '

' _What if I don't? What if I don't change anything at all?'_

Shade nodded at me sadly, like he already knew the answer. And I guess, in a way, he did. ' _You will._ '

In this state between sleep and awake, I can reminisce about last night without Cal's watchful eyes. In part, the reason I was so forward last night was frustration. He has no idea how much taking care of everyone else, and now taking care of his future and what that means to me, has been like a bag over my head—it's all I can see, all I can think about. It takes all of my focus to remind myself to keep breathing, keep surviving as long as I can see to it that others make it out of this alive. Taking care of myself comes instinctively, a second-nature if you will. It's in my bones to stay alive, even in the worst of circumstances. My body comes to life, well before the miracle of lightning changed me, and I know I can get myself out. I think back to when Kilorn and I had planned to run for our lives to avoid conscription. I still think we could have done it. It would have been a thousand times more dangerous, but the thing about growing up poor and hungry as a Red in the Stilts is a killer survival instinct.

Another reason for kissing Cal is the need to feel what I felt in my memory again: that we were made for one another, and we could one dayfind a way to make a relationship, a _marriage_ , work between us. I wanted the passion that future Cal kissed me with like I belonged to him and he to me. Old lovers. What I got from him wasn't quite there yet. He kissed me like… Like new lovers, I suppose. Two people still trying to figure out how we possibly build from our ruins.

Shade's words never fail to leave the back of my mind: " _When the time comes, you have to leave Cal._ " Is it fair to put Cal through this? Or is it wrong to deny us what I know we both need?

I feel a hand on my elbow and know it belongs to Kilorn. His touch isn't warm or intimate like Cal's; it's gentler, but his hands are calloused and colder. "At what point are you going to join the rest of the world? At dinner?"

I don't respond immediately, still content with closed eyes and blissful daydreams trying to overcome the almost-stifling reality.

"Mare, your mouth is almost never closed or quiet when you sleep."

"How many times in our life do I have to tell you I do not snore, Kilorn Warren," I growl without opening my eyes to him.

Ha laughs and sits down next to me. "Fine. Call it breathing like an underground train if you will. It still isn't quiet, princess."

"No, that it's not. Lady Blonos would have been appalled." I hear it from Cal's mouth and throw my arms over my face with a groan. I want to go back to uninterrupted dreams and peace. A hand wraps around my calf and I know this one belongs to Cal. His fingers stroke my leg discreetly but also strangely confidently. Cal and I are never ones for public affections due to the outright disdain directed toward us by Reds and Silvers alike. I don't pull my leg away, and inwardly I'm proud of myself for that.

"You two are insufferable," I grumble.

"Maybe," Kilorn laughs, "but I brought you one of your favorite fruits, so you can't be too annoyed if you want me to hand it over."

This piques my interest and I finally open my eyes to see a large orange shoved in my face. I swat Kilorn's hand away and grab at the fruit before he can pull it away. My eyes widen in delight at the heavy orange ball that is easily the size of my two hands. The first time I had an orange was over a decade ago, when the Royal family was leaving Summerton and a small boy on the passing ship threw one onto the riverbank where I sat on a stump in the mud. I search for the face in my memory, but I never clears beyond a vague recognition. With a quiet gasp, I remember not the boy's face, but another distinct feature. He stood off to the side and not in the foreground with his brother and the King. I look at Cal wondrously, because I realize who it would have been. The child in the shadows, my age, breaking the rules to give a poor Red girl a fruit. Cal tilts his head toward me with a sweet smile, oblivious to my gut-punch of a revelation. Kilorn is also oblivious, but only because he's fascinated with the backstory of the Newblood Greenie.

"…by the name is Anne. I didn't realize she'd been doing this for us all along, but she wanted to know how she could help and when she revealed her ability, she's been Nanny's favorite ever since. She can change the way seeds grow and make any fruit and vegetable almost instantly. She just needs seeds. How cool, right? She's basically the reason why we don't have a food shortage. Took a few tries for her to get the tastes right on new stuff she's never had before, but she's gotten pretty good with everyone's help, aaaaand you two are having a moment so I'm going to just go somewhere…not…here—oh! Ada! Did you get an orange from Anne?"

Kilorn hurries off to leave Cal and I to our silent conversation of expression, but I don't want to bring Maven up nor do I want to lie about it if Cal asks. So I do something I feel really grimy about and distract him to keep the conversation away. I pull Cal's hand from my leg and tug him toward me until he's on his side next to me. I'm close enough to see the stubble on his chin, but I'm careful not to press my body against his in case others are looking on. I hold the orange precariously above my face and start peeling at it with Cal watching my slow and stilted movements due to the weaker arm with the collarbone injury.

"You drop that on your face and you're going to have a nasty bruise," he warns.

"It'll match the rest," I answer with a shrug. I make slow work of the orange, breaking off little pieces of the bitter outside, until Cal sighs and takes the fruit from my hand while simultaneously pulling out his pocket blade.

"That's a new one," I comment on the dark grey knife. The hilt of Cal's usually knife, the one I've always known him to carry, is gold with red swirly inlay. It's fancy, and deadly. This one looks drab by comparison.

"Yes and no. While not a new blade, it is new to me. I retired the last one."

"Oh? Why?"

He's finished cutting the peel off the orange and hands it back to me while cleaning the blade with the hem of his shirt. I blush when I remember his shirt from last night is still covering me.

"Bad memories," is all he says, but what he means is he doesn't want to hold the same knife he burned my flesh with only a few days ago. Sitting up to escape yet another potential conversation, I pop an orange slice into my mouth and make an embarrassingly loud groan when it bursts with fresh citrus flavor. I feel Cal squirm uncomfortably behind me until he's sat up, too.

After a period of awkward silence, I've finished the orange with Cal staring at me and averting his eyes whenever I caught him. "So what's the plan for today?" I ask. "Was Ada able to figure out what tunnel we should be looking in for the base?"

Cal nods and shifts into tactical mode so quickly and mercurially that it catches me off guard. "She's narrowed it down to the far northwest two, so we will need to split up into two groups to explore them. We'll use the flashlights to keep time. One flashlight there, one flashlight back. When the first flashlight dies, you turn around and use the second one to get back. I'm not sure how you'll feel about this, but I recommend you and I take separate leads. It's safer for the both of us that way, so Emander has volunteered to go with you. He insisted, actually, and he's an excellent soldier with solid combative experience. He isn't as observant or quiet as you, but he's got brute force, and he'll keep you safe. I wouldn't let you out of my sight if I didn't trust him." I can tell he's nervous—unsure how I'll take his plan of splitting up, worried about me, and hopeful he's sold Emander as a good partner. In truth, I don't love the idea of splitting up, but his reasoning is solid and it will help us get to the base quicker—which is why I don't argue it.

"I'm sure it'll be fine, Cal. As we discussed last night, I can take care of myself."

That helps ease his worry some, because he smirks wickedly at me and leans in to whisper in my ear. "As I recall, we didn't discuss it at all."

I play the same game of seduction without ever realizing it, whispering back into his ear, "Oh we did. You lost, remember?"

Cal's warm breath tickles the shell of my ear deliciously. My insides clench when he chuckles so quietly I almost miss it. "Refresh my memory."

I slowly pull my head back to lock eyes with his a few inches away. His eyelids are heavy as he looks at me with pure desire. And though I notice that first, the fact that Cal wants me, behind those golden amber depths I see the lingering fear he holds onto. He watches me notice it because he tries to blink it away with a mask of confidence, but it's too late. I already know his heart in the form of a small child with rosy cheeks and gleaming brown eyes named Tanner. I allow myself a quick peck on his lips before I pull away to break our spell.

"We should start heading out soon, right?"

Cal nods tightly. "It'll be fine," I reassure him. "You can handle anything, and I can handle anything. It'll be fine. Meet me here for dinner?"

Cal takes me face in his eyes and kisses me firmly but all too quickly on the mouth, then the tip of my nose, and finally my forehead where he stays a bit longer to inhale my scent the same way I try to breathe him in. "Don't be late," he murmurs.


	14. Chapter 14

"What about whistling? Do you whistle?"

"No."

"Play an instrument?

I scoff. I only knew of one Red in the Stilts who could play an instrument because she'd learned from her father, who'd learned from his father and so on. Music was a luxury we weren't allowed as slaves to the Silvers. "Nope."

"Well you must do _something_ ," he suggests. "Everyone has a talent or hobby of some kind."

"Yeah, I make electricity." I roll my eyes at the obviousness of that, which is probably rude to High House Emander Macanthos over here, but he has been going on for ages. Emander has no shortage of questions and I have a limited supply of patience. But he's Cal's best friend, so I keep reminding myself to bite my tongue and play along with his nonstop attempts at small talk.

His obnoxious bark of a laughter grates on me for some reason. "Well, you don't _make_ electricity. You just control it. No one can create what isn't already there."

I cast a sidelong glance at Emander; he means well—it's not like he's saying it to challenge me, but I can't help feeling like he's slightly patronizing. It's that Silver arrogance they carry with them. Well, except for Julian. Julian knows the truth. I _can_ create. I'm not limited by my surroundings, and that's what makes me so powerful. But Farley's stern warning echoes in my ears: ' _We appear weak because we want to.'_ So I pull my eyes back to stare ahead of me, choosing not to prove the Silver brick house wrong.

We continue along the musty tunnel, and I notice this one is damper than the other two I've been in. The walls seep with moisture that I think is starting to smell worse by hour. I'm bundled in a few layers, but my pants, a mix of soft leather and breathable nylon allow the chill in the air to bite at my legs. I want to walk faster for that very reason, but as fortuitous as Emander is, he isn't fast. I have no doubt if Cal were with me, we would be an additional hour or more ahead. For now, Emander has gone quiet, so I notice things like how I can see my breath and how my feet keep slipping as the ground becomes rockier and wetter. I don't like where this is leading. Why would the occupants from the Old World connect their shelter's entrance to a tunnel that is this much of a nuisance? If they were traveling up and down this tunnel to and from the mines and the their encampment, wouldn't the path show more signs of wear? However this tunnel grows narrower and wetter by every dangerous step.

I stop abruptly and Emander, who's been forces to walk partially at my side and partially behind me to we can fit into the tunnel way, nearly shoves me over until he catches me quickly before I can faceplant the sharp, rocky ground.

"I don't like this," I tell him. "None of the other underground tunnels I've been in were like this. We should turn around and head back, and we'll just tell Cal there's nothing down this one unless he wants to investigate it himself with Ada. She might know more about this strange geography."

I can tell Emander is considering my words and strategizing a way to tell me he disagrees without coming across as impolite.

I don't have time for that sort of thing. "Spit it out."

"Well, it's just… I think we should make it as far ahead as we can until the flashlight runs out, like Calore instructed us to. He would expect us, well mostly me since you're his girlfriend—"

"I'm not his girlfriend," I interrupt, immediately blushing at his assumption.

His eyes widen at me in surprise. Did he really think Cal and I were in a relationship? Does everyone think that?

"Oh, uhm…" He tries to get around the awkwardness his just created, so I just sigh and tell him to continue with what he was saying.

"I was saying he would expect me to complete the mission, and I can't let you go back on your own. Look, the flashlight is already dimming. We have an hour maybe? If we reach a dead end or it gets too risky before then, we'll turn back around and tell Calore we're certain it isn't the base's entrance."

The weight of the Silent Stone is giving me a headache, as I'm doing everything I can to avoid touching the walls around me in cause there's another surprise memory inlaid for my emotional wreckage. Last thing Emander needs to witness. Even though I don't feel great about this, I nod and push ahead anyway. I'm sure if I put my foot down, I could turn us around, but Emander's right that Cal would want us to be as thorough with this tunnel as possible. We can't stay in the atrium forever, and our only other option is to return to the Notch, but that's all but a guaranteed danger zone. People are getting anxious and antsy. Two days without sunlight or fresh air or a bed; Silvers in close quarters with Reds…We need to find this base.

"So what age was your first kiss?"

I throw my head back with a laugh and catch Emander's big grin behind me.

"Pass."


	15. Chapter 15

**For as chatty as I presumed Kilorn Warren would be—he certainly seems that way around Mare at least—he's been silent this entire hike. I have a good feeling about this tunnel. It's more open and airier, less Silent Stone, smooth walls. I'm so excited, in fact, that I keep a break-neck pace that I can tell Kilorn is struggling to keep up with. I don't want to piss the guy off, so when I hear him huffing behind me, I come to a stop and lean back against one of the walls, as if to stop for a break. Kilorn immediately looks relieved. He chugs an entire canteen of water, something I have to refrain from reprimanding him for doing. It's a painfully rookie mistake.**

**Kilorn shuffles his foot around nervously, like a speech is about to follow. Shit, I don't want to hear his thoughts on Mare and me. I know he's still hung up on her, but it's an unnecessary competition. Maybe I don't know Mare's heart, but I know her body language, and it does not favor Kilorn at all.**

**"What is it Warren?"**

**Kilorn looks surprised, his mouth bobbing open and shut like a fish, which I find ironic and fitting. "It's nothing."**

**I nod and pull myself from the wall to start moving ahead again.**

**"It's just…"**

**I fight the urge to sigh and lean back into position against the wall, ready to listen to whatever bull he's going to throw my way.**

**"What do think of Ada?"**

**Now it's my turn to turn dumbly speechless. "Oh, uh… I think she's…good?"**

**Kilorn rolls his eyes. "Yeah, man, I know she's good but like, what do you _think_ of her? Do you think she'd go for a guy like me?"**

**"I have honestly no idea. I don't know anything about her outside of her ability."**

**Kilorn groans,, pacing from one wall to the other with such tension over this girl that I almost find it comical. "She's brilliant isn't she? Shit. She's probably too smart for me. She's a older, too, so she's probably more experienced. But she doesn't seem that way, right? I mean I think she spent most of her time stuck serving that Rhambos bast—sorry. You know, that family. She wouldn't have had much time for seeing other people, would she? Unless there were a lot of guys in that house. Do you know?"**

**"Do I know if the Rhambos House had many males living there? I don't fucking know, Warren. I didn't keep an inventory. I'm sure she's had to have seen guys at some point. Why does it matter?"**

**Kilorn stares at me accusingly. "You mean you aren't curious if Mare's ever had anything going on with another guy?"**

**The question cuts deep without Kilorn realizing it and I feel my body burn with flames begging to let loose. She did have something going on with another guy. My brother, no less. "She doesn't now," I grit out in measure annoyance, "is what I'm saying, so it is of no concern to me."**

**"Right," Kilorn nods incessantly, but I have the feeling he's not really paying attention to anything I've said or the sudden shift in my temper. "I don't know, Prince, I think she's way out of my league."**

**"All women are way out of our league," I respond. "Mare included."**

**"Ha! Mare is a league of her own. She's the general, captain, sergeant, whatever it all is, of her own goddamn league where she's her own damn queen. I don't envy you, man."**

**And while I know he means it in good spirits, I can't help being a little bit of a dick to him for how he acted toward me at the beginning when he did have mixed feelings for Mare. "Well you did there for a minute."**

**Kilorn nods again and looks opposite me to a spot on the wall. "That I did. I thought I loved her, and I do in the she's-my-best-friend way. Man, I thought Mare was _it_ for me. But really, we were just each other's no-fail backup plans. I was supposed to go on to become a fisher, and I'd figure out some way to get Mare out of conscription or at worse I'd wait for her to come back from the war. Maybe we could've started a family before she turned 18 so she wouldn't have to ever go to the war. Then we'd settle down because there was no one and nothing else for us."**

**This gets my curiosity. I never had a choice in who I'd be betrothed to, and many Silver marriages are arranged for power, not love. Love is a weakness in Silver kingdoms. After all, look at what it did to my mother. To Uncle Julian and Sara. But Reds…Reds could marry anyone. They could have endless relationships with whomever they wanted, they could have soulmates and other fairytale notions of romance and true love. All these things that existed in fables my father would read to me as a child, when he still deeply mourned my mother with me. Before Elara made him the cold and callous man he became, before she shamed him out of his grief. Reds were free to have anyone with no one to stop them. I always envied them that. Why would any of them ever throw that gift away to settle? "So that's it?" I ask incredulously. I'm annoyed at both of them for having relinquished what seems like the one true joy Reds have access to that I would never have. "You two would have given up on love just because it was convenient that way?"**

**Kilorn shakes his head. "You don't get it. I had no one but Mare and her family all my life, and Mare… Well she's not exactly every guy's dream girl." I disagree with him, but I keep my mouth shut so he can continue freely. "She never gave any guy the time of day. Not with Bree, Tramy, and Shade—especially Shade—around her most of the time. You mess with Mare, and the two rocks for brains plus the literate one would harass you endlessly. And that's if Mare didn't kick your ass herself. But she knows me, and I know her, and that's enough for Reds in the Stilts. That's all you get. It's not like we had much to look forward to anyway. You make it through conscription, you're still poor. Then we'd bring kids in this world to live the same miserable lives with the same miserable outcomes."**

**I cringe at his bitterness, knowing in part that my comfort was at the sacrifice of his and all the rest of them. It's why Mare had to resort to stealing from her own kind just to survive—and not trinkets or toys, but things she could barter for blankets, electricity, and food. Mare's briefly touched on the nights as a child when she went hungry so that Gisa could eat. It's a heartbreaking habit that I still see in her today when she refuses her rations or skips meals without realizing it because hunger isn't an unfamiliar pain to her. I'm willing to bet Kilorn is the same way, and I wonder if all Reds know what it's like. We slip into reflective silence for a moment, where my mind wanders off to Mare and Kilorn living together in one of those small and unstable houses like Mare's. It's an unpleasant thought, for all the reasons he described—the poverty and hunger, the lack of passion and romance—but also because I can't stomach the thought of her and Kilorn together in the ways I want to be with her.**

**Would I trade the crown to be with her? I couldn't the first time, and I don't know if I made the right decision then. But if we overrule Maven and gain the upper hand, could I turn away my birthright and duty to have a life with her? Realistically, the Reds may win more rights than they have now if the Scarlet Guard overthrows Maven, but they could never be the ruling class, not for generations to come at least. Silvers are more powerful, Newbloods are no more than a fraction of the population and they lack the control and precision of their abilities. Deep down in the dark parts of my heart, I still believe Silvers were born to rule. Mare will never feel the same, but would she join me at the throne? Would Norta let her?**

**When I reach an impasse in my thoughts, I only just notice Kilorn has started talking about Ada again. I'm just abut to tell him to go for it and get the girl, but the distant echoes of a crash have me motion for Kilorn to shut up and listen. Another loud crash and Mare's distant scream for help have me take off faster than I can ever remember running in my life. Kilorn is at my heels until he isn't, but I don't stop to wait for him nor do I slow down. If anything, I run faster to the sound of Mare's cursing and screaming. Wherever I'm headed is nothing but Silent Stone from wall-to-wall. I feel myself nearing it and throw fireball after fireball ahead of me while I still have the ability to light the way ahead before I'm running blind. I'm surprised to see this tunnel split into two and I panic, unsure at which one to choose. The right tunnel is more black void, but the left seems just faintly lighter. This could be my brain playing tricks on me, but I don't have time to waste on figuring it out. Whatever the reason, I turn left and trust the instinct I feel. Mare is in this one.**

**I run through the possibilities in my head. An ambush by Maven or his legions. Maybe they found another way in. Would they have slaughtered everyone in the atrium? Or maybe she just fell—clumsy and tired, and Emander too bulky and slow to catch her. That one I hope for. Or the other dire possibility-creatures we've never seen before lurking underground. I know some beasts were forced out of habitats when our world reemerged and heard rumors great and terrible animals found refuge in the darkest depths of the untouched world. Without my fire, I'm at a disadvantage but not useless. I pull out the gun from the back of my waistband and push my burning lungs to keep going until her sharp yells compete with a loud indescribable sound. It sounds empty, just noise that is vaguely familiar but nothing I can place. As the noise becomes louder and drowns out Mare, I slow down at the extreme transformation ahead of me.**

**The ground is slippery thanks to a waterfall that pours down the side of a huge opening where her tunnel and mine have met. That's the noise I couldn't place, but that's not what stops me dead in my tracks.**

**Nothing prepares me for what happens next.**


	16. Chapter 16

"Why are you getting so antsy? You're the one who said to keep going." I can guess it's been at least another hour as the flashlight battery has started to flicker into a dying golden color. Each time I smack it against my palm, the bright light shines for a minute or two before it eventually fades, and the deep amber it fades into reminds me, sadly, of Cal's eyes. The fact that I noticed the similarity on something that is essentially dying, given my recent trips down memory lane, has kept my lips pressed together into a tight line for quite some time now. In the silence, I get lost in my mind until I realize I have tears stinging my eyes at the darkness my thoughts haven taken me. It's then I notice Emander has been unusually quiet and fidgety as we head deeper into the tunnel; the walk back is going to take us well past dinner, and I lament that it will make me late in meeting Cal like I'd promised.

I don't hear Emander grumble behind me because the loud white noise that has been echoing off the walls for the last few miles has suddenly turned into a roar. I walk faster toward it, totally entranced by what I am almost positive that sound may be. Ahead of me I see it. The tunnel opens up into another atrium, this one significantly smaller mostly due to the massive—no, the unbelievably gargantuan waterfall cascading down sharp, jutting rocks. I stare at it wide-eyed and mouth agape while its spray slowly starts drenching me. This is incredible. I've never seen anything like this, not even in Summerton. The water rushes down the rocks with such speed and force that it looks foamy in some parts, which causes me to look up to a small ring of light from high above. The waterfall flows into a river opposite us and collects into a pool at a terrifying drop about hundred or more feet below. I instinctively back up and hit a brick wall, but it's not that, it's Emander. Instead of looking at the incredulity in front of us, he is staring daggers right at me. Maybe Silvers are used to waterfalls, but I can't recall where many of them would be in Norta. Then again, I went to all of two geography classes so my ignorance wouldn't be much of a surprise.

Emander's stoic presence becomes so uncomfortable that I can't make eye contact with him. I'm careful to keep my distance as I look over the edge of where our tunnel ends into the abyss below. There's another tunnel leading to this place, and I'm willing to bet that one leads back to the main atrium, too. The flashlight finally gives out, and I toss it over to Emander uselessly. He catches it, then chucks it into the waterfall.

"Okay, what the hell, Emander? Five minutes ago you wouldn't shut the hell up and now you're creepy silent and throwing out supplies? Is this some sort of Silver temper tantrum?"

I watch him walk away pinching the bridge of his nose before he rounds on me with a fire in his eyes that I've only ever seen on Cal. "Calore killed his father because of you!" He has to compete over the roar of the waterfall, but I hear it loud and clear. "Our King is dead and the Crown Prince Calore brainwashed because of a stupid Red girl with power she should not have!"

Holy shit. _Holy shit_. Emander has never so much as hinted a problem with me before. "Did you just join the program?! Is this your first day? Cal killed his father because of the Queen! Elara made Cal do it, not me!"

"And now she's dead! Isn't that convenient, Mare Barrow? Or is it Mareena Titanos? Tell me, did you convince Cal that was for the best, too? Did you have him kill his father to take the crown while you killed the Queen to take hers? Were you going to walk around pretending to be a Silver with a crown you don't deserve and a prince's heart you poisoned?!"

I'm torn between laughing and running the hell away from here, but he blocks the entrance of the tunnel we just came from, and without my electricity, I don't know what awaits in the second tunnel. Could there be more? Is Maven here? This could be a setup; it's why he wanted us to keep walking into this tunnel despite knowing it wouldn't lead us anywhere. My panic raises into my throat, and I realize I have no choice but to fight my way out of this. But fighting Emander could very well be like fighting Cal—a battle I know I'd lose. My hands spark with what little ability I have, prompting Emander to move into an aggressor stance. He lunges for me, but I drop to the ground and submerge my lightning hands into the water where he stands, shocking him instantly. He's thrown back against the wall with a tremendous echo and debris raining around us. He powers forward again and catches my foot as I skirt off to the side to dodge him. I guess it was too much to hope the buffoon would plunge himself into the waterfall deathtrap we are precariously fighting near. He pulls my foot out from under me and my head hits the ground before the rest of me does. I see stars briefly before my hand juts out to his leg, which is miraculously uncovered by stoneskin. He can only maintain part of his body in this form because of the Silent Stone around us is what I guess, but that will work to my advantage if I just learn where to hit him. I electrocute him again, and while it doesn't do much to stop him, it buys me enough time to pull out my knife and stab Emander just above the ankle. He roars, and I don't miss the opportunity when he yanks me up by the hair to show off the hilt so he knows just whose knife this is. The brief gloat costs me when he swings me around and sends me skidding across the ground an nearly over the edge. I scramble away, not bothering to get onto my feet while Emander is having so much trouble staying upright on his thanks to the watery conditions.

"If I don't kill you, Cal will, Emander! I'm giving you a chance to back the hell off." I don't know that Cal wouldn't kill him anyway for even trying, but it's the best I've got to get Emander to back down.

Emander's laugh chills me to the bone. It's the same laugh I heard not long ago in the cave, but now he's a traitor and not the awkward friend trying to make conversation. "You give up fast, Mare."

I gather a ball of electricity out of nowhere, smirking at Emander's accusation that no one can create. I make sure he sees me build on the ball in my hands with sparks that come from nowhere but myself before I aim it for his chest. I make sure he hears the dig before I release. "What do you know of fast?"


	17. Chapter 17

**The scene plays out before me without any interruption from my sudden appearance. They don't notice me as they pummel into each other: Mare is quick on her feet around Emander, but Emander is ten times stronger. Mare has taken a hit to the side of her face judging by the blood covering her from cheek down to her chin. Emander looks to have fared better, but he would-he's a Stoneskin. Yet Mare's lightning is a force to be reckoned with, and she strategically pushes Emander near the water so she can amplify her electricity when she throws lightning bolts at his feet. She must have done this several times already, because Emander is careful and tries dodging her and the water that freeflows around them. I watch in horror as Emander's fist comes barreling towards her, and that's the moment I snap out of my trance. I mean to tackle Emander, but Mare reacts in time and slides herself beneath Emander's legs and uses the momentum to spring herself up onto his back and quickly climbs higher on him. She presses her hands to either side of his head and creates a growing sparking ball out of it. The Stoneskin only lasts for so long before he's screaming and clutching blindly at her atop his shoulders. She's relentless though, and she's intent on killing him. I see it in her eyes.**

**I shout her name to stop her before she's finishes the deed, relieved when her hands go dark and Emander's eyes blink open. Emander throws her forward and she lands with a thud in front of him into a puddle. She coughs and sputters, gasping for air from the wind knocked out of her and the water choking her. To my horror, Emander's boot connects with her back and pushes her further into the water, effectively drowning her.**

**"Emander! Stop, Macanthos, stop!" I shout at him. He lifts his foot a fraction and Mare weakly rolls out from underneath him as soon as the pressure is off her.**

**"I can't do that, Calore," he responds evenly. "I have orders. She has to be held accountable for her actions against the country and the throne." He repeats himself, almost begging me to understand, "I have orders."**

**"Whose orders, Macanthos?!" When I look in his eyes, I know the answer. I know it from his guilt, the remorse at having agreed to whatever it is he's agreed to, but the rigidity in his decision.**

**"The King Maven of Norta."**

**Mare has pulled herself to her feet, looking strong and surprisingly steady. "But we rescued you from Corros! You've been with us the whole time!"**

**His glare toward Mare is cool and menacing. "You didn't rescue me, you Red devil."**

**I raise my gun toward Emander and put my finger on the trigger threateningly. No one misses the movement. "You were stationed there," I realize aloud. "You snuck in with us."**

**Mare gasps, understanding what this might mean for all of the Silvers we've taken in. Her hands spark in anger but I order her to stand down until we have more information; I ignore her growl of irritation toward me..**

**"What did Maven tell you, Macanthos?"**

**He hesitates for a moment, looking between Mare and I before answering me. "You killed the King, but it's because of her, Calore. I know you like a brother. I never believed you would do such a thing on your own. You loved your father. SHE did this to you. She filled your head with lies, all lies, so her and those monsters could destroy us. You should've been King. She took that from you when she poisoned you with Red filth," he spits at her. "She killed the Queen! She has to be put down like the animal she is, like her brother was."**

**Before I can stop her, Mare has gunned it for Emander, knocking him across the jaw before he can fully transform his skin to evade the blow. I cringe when I hear a few of her knuckles break, but I'd be surprised if she didn't break his jaw either.**

**Emander quickly wraps his arms around her body, holding her in a position I know is meant to snap her neck. With her in front of him, the two sides of my life have collided, the contrast shocking and unavoidable. Up until now, it hasn't been easy to compartmentalize the two. I've managed to segregate the two halves: everything I've known is with Emander, but the future I want is with Mare. This isn't who I'm meant to be or what I'm meant to do, but I want Mare to be a part of it as she's now a part of me. I want my old life back with Mare in it.**

**"It's her or me, Calore. We aren't both getting out of here alive, you know that. And there will be more. Evangeline and Ptolemus are hunting you down. They have orders to kill you both, and it won't be pretty or quick. If Maven gets her, he'll hold her prisoner. But I can guarantee your safety. Do the right thing. For your country. For your father. Your legion."**

**His words are imploring, begging me to take his side and take back the country that is rightfully mine to rule. "We can get you back on the throne. The King, he- he's not ready for this. You are. The legion and your Silver brothers and sisters, we will fight for you. We always have. _I_ always have, Calore. I've been in battle with you. I've grown up with you. I knew your mom, too; I told you stories of her when you couldn't remember. I taught you chess. I'm just as much of your brother as Maven."**

**He struggles through his next words, and I can't tell whether it's Emander's anguish or Mare digging her nails into his arms with small but constant sparks lighting her fingertips. He grits his teeth but continues fervently. "You belong with us, not here. Not with her. She'll destroy everything, all of us. She'll turn all of Norta against one another...everything your family name has built will be ruined under the stain of her Red blood."**


	18. Chapter 18

If Emander keeps squeezing my head like this, I'm afraid my eyes will pop out of my head. Any second he could twist—it would be the minimalist of effort on his part—and there would be no coming back from this. Why doesn't Cal just shoot him?! He has his gun right there. He's a better shot than any of us and Emander is slow whereas I know I can duck in time. Cal knows this, too. Why won't he just shoot him? What's he waiting for? Unless he isn't sure what side to choose. I want to tell him this is nothing more than Maven's games, that he can't go back to Archeon, that he'll never be their hero, that I've seen it with my own eyes—he can't defeat Maven. But then it hits me like a ton of bricks and hurts more than any blow I've been dealt this entire fight. I remember what Shade said to me last night and why Cal couldn't defeat Maven, and I realize why Cal is struggling with this decision, no matter how obvious it seems.

Emander presses on, goading Cal with promises of a kingdom he would never have with Maven alive, nor the country he wants as long as the Scarlet Guard still stand. My eyes begin to water as the pressure building in my head becomes almost unbearable under Emander's hold. My hands pry at his arms for any relief so I can breathe, but he keeps me on the terrifying edge of barely conscious and permanent darkness.

"Emander," Cal chokes out, and it's the first time I hear him call his friend by his first name. He shakes his head, maybe to shake away the tears glistening his eyes. Emander releases his grip enough so I can heave lungfuls of air, but he doesn't let me go. Instead Emander murmurs quietly and gently to me against my ear, "This will be quick."

"CAL!" I scream.

Cal surges forward to pull me from Emander's grip before he touches the Silver's shoulder and burns him from the inside out. He keeps his eyes locked on Emander's even as blood bubbles out of them. "I'm truly sorry," he laments to the dying Silver. Emander's skin turns bright red and begins to blister, and for a moment I wonder why Cal won't just shoot him until I realize all of Emander's body has turned to stone as a defense, but it cracks underneath the heat. His death is agonizing to watch, no matter how much I hate him for trying to kill me—and almost succeeding, so I turn away before I vomit.

When Cal lets him go, or when the Silver crumples to the ground, Cal turns toward me to ask if I'm okay. When he reaches for me, I draw back. It's a duality of instincts. On one end, I gravitate towards Cal now without thought or motivation. Wherever he is, I know where to find him. Like a moth to a flame, I need to be with him. On the other end, my survival is ingratiated in me so deeply that Cal's inability to choose once again has alarms battering inside my head at an ear-splitting ring. And somewhere in the middle is me, feeling yet again another betrayal.

"Mare..."

He has the good sense to look ashamed, but for what I don't know. Because he killed his friend? Because he nearly killed me?

I don't know how to verbalize the anger and hurt towards him, so I don't. I don't know how to forgive him, so I don't. Instead I turn around and walk aimlessly away from him. He follows easily, so I walk faster. Then faster. Until I'm running and absolutely must beat his pace so he can't see the tears streaming in rivulets down my cheeks. But as fast as I am, Cal is my equal. I'm annoyed and grateful for that when my foot catches on the ground and I start to tumble ahead if not for Cal's firm grasp on my elbow. I try to jerk away and turn my face towards the dark tunnel that Cal had come from. I stubbornly refuse to give him the comfort he needs by comforting me. He can sit there in misery for all I care.

Knowing I can't pull from his grip without shocking him, though that is still in the back of my mind as an option, Cal begins to explain. I don't want to hear this, whatever sorry excuse he has for hesitating between the two of us when it was obvious what was happening.

"Mare...it's not what you think. Emander...h-he was my best friend. A soldier in my legion, and arguably the most loyal one at that. He would never do something like this. I thought...I thought maybe Maven forced him into this. Maybe he found another whisperer to get into Emander's head, and I just needed to be sure for myself before I... It just took me by surprise, Mare. That's all. It wasn't what you think it was."

I pull my bottom lip between my teeth to stop myself from crying. He hesitated between me and his best friend before making a rash decision, and while I get it—at least I think I get it—I can't ignore the stab that still burns from the bridge at Archeon so long ago. He's chosen a crown over me. Why wouldn't he choose a Silver friend over me? I scold myself and remember that because of me, Cal's been forced out of his world. Because of me, Cal has had to kill more of his kind. He's lost everything he's known. A mother, a father, a brother, a legion, a crown, a kingdom, and now his best friend by his own hand at his own will. This is what I concentrate on as I mentally pull the knife out of my back and try to ignore the open scar.

I turn so he can just see the side of my face, only to make brief eye contact with him to let him know I acknowledge his reasoning. Any more, and he'll see the tears in my eyes that threaten to spill again. But judging from the distress marring his tired features, I suppose he notices it anyway. "It's fine," I croak out. "I'm fine." Then softer, a mumbled whisper, "I'm sorry it has to be this way."

He starts to rebuff my apology, but I quickly remove my arm from his grip and rub away the indentations of his fingers. "We should keep moving." I walk ahead and my tone and demeanor leaves no room for argument.

I can hear Cal behind me when he mutters under his breath, "I'd always choose you. Only you."

I desperately hope for the sake of our future that he's right, but seeing what I've seen and knowing what I know, it won't be that simple.


	19. Chapter 19

**The walk back to the atrium is intensely silent. Mare struggles to lead with a body that's beat to hell, but I quickly learned not to help her or get anywhere deemed too close if I didn't want her snapping at me. She's lost in her own thoughts, and I know at least a few of them are of what happened with Emander. I don't know how to convince her that my hesitation wasn't with her and I would've never let him kill her, but then she's never had to choose between two worlds. Mareena wasn't a world she chose, or even wanted. The Scarlet Guard wasn't a choice either. It was a necessity to her and Kilorn's survival. It's easy for her to kill outside of her kind. She sees them, us, as enemies. I wonder if she sees me as her enemy. If it was between Kilorn and me, I doubt Mare would make a quick decision, nor would I expect her to. But maybe I'm thinking about this all wrong because Kilorn hasn't tried to kill her, and I...well, I all but sentenced her to death. Twice I've had to choose between her and Norta, and it never gets any easier. If anything, as my feelings for Mare grow, it complicates everything that much more.**

**The silence gives me time to think over what we'll do with the Silvers who stayed. There's a chance they're all like Emander, just waiting their turn, but how to determine that and what to do about it are two answers I can't figure out. I'm worried Mare will want to kill all of them, yet even in her deadliest, she isn't one to rashly kill without cause or reason. I hope. Truth is, I'm not entirely sure what Mare is capable of anymore. I used to think she was easy to read, finding clarity in the deep brown pools of her eyes, but now she's added so many layers that I don't know what I'll see each day. And every day seems to drive us further apart before slamming us back together again even if only briefly. Case in point, last night. How she was so distant and off in her own head when I found her only to come crashing back into me shortly after. It's like nothing I've ever felt before: maddening, and beautiful, and terrifying, and comforting all the same.**

**I notice a flickering of light ahead, way sooner than there should be at this point in the tunnel. We're at least another 15 miles from the atrium. "Mare, hold up," I instruct.**

**"What?" she hisses, annoyed and cranky.**

**I point ahead. "Do you see that light?" I wait for her to nod in acknowledgement. "That shouldn't be there."**

**In this tunnel, my flame glows strong and bright, illuminating our surroundings and Mare perfectly. I can see her chew on her bottom lip in contemplation—she wants to lead here, and I'm happy to oblige that, but not at the risk of getting both of us killed.**

**"Well we can't turn around," she says. In her hand she forms a ball of lightning the crackles in my patient silence. "Let's go."**

**I grab her arm and pull her back. "Mare, what if that's Maven up there. Other Silvers? We can't just charge ahead."**

**"So what, you want to hang around here until…what exactly? Cal, we don't have a choice."**

**"We can make a smarter choice than 'Let's go.' You expect to just waltz in there with a heavy limp and hold your ground?"**

**"No I'm not going to…what is it? _Waltz_? Whatever that is. Hell, I'm not an idiot, Cal, and it's about damn time you stopped treating me like one. We're going!"**

**I shake my head in exasperation. "No. You. Are. Not." My command is firm and louder than I intend to be. I feel like I'm back on the war front, except no one would have dared question me there. Even a murmur of doubt would have cost them rank, something my father taught me to employ early on in my military training to ensure unquestioned leadership. Though I didn't care for my father's 'To be feared is to be loved' approach, I'd read enough similar philosophies in my studies to know he hadn't entirely missed the mark. "You will stay here, and I will go ahead. If there is a threat, you will run back to the waterfall and wait for me there."**

**Mare's face turns hard and severe, her arms cross her chest, and her shoulders pull back to bring her to full height. Still, she's a good foot shorter than me and relatively harmless without her lightning cascading around her. She has to know I have the advantage here, if nothing else because I have the most mobility. "Are you done pretending like you're my General, or have you not wasted enough breath?"**

**"Don't be a brat, Mare."**

**"Don't be an asshole, Cal!"**

**"I'm trying to keep you from getting killed!"**

**"Oh, NOW you want to do that?!"**

**I grit my teeth to hold back my next few remarks that would surely escalate things beyond a civilized argument. Her eyes might as well have fire in them, and I realize in this moment that she is picking this fight with me to let off steam. I can negotiate this; if she wants a target, I'll give her a target.**

**In our standoff, neither of us have realized the flickering light has gotten closer to us. It's only an awkward clearing of someone's throat that I jump and draw my gun at the same time as my other arm ignites.**

**"Woah, woah, woah. Domestic problems really have you two hot and bothered, yeesh!" It's just Kilorn; an unharmed, too-smirky-for-his-own-good Kilorn.**

**"That's not what hot and bothered means, Warren." Both Mare and I do a 180 and exclaim at the same time, "Farley!?"**

**"That's right, you two lovebirds. Good to know you're still pissing away time and energy with your little spats."**

**Mare's shock is more obvious than mine, and I can tell she's both relieved and excited to have Farley back. I admit, I'm equally happy to see the Captain, though I'm curious as to how and why she's back after only a few short weeks at Tuck. As if reading my mind, she explains.**

**"Figured you two wouldn't know your heads from your asses enough to find the base before the others started a revolt. Fortunately Warren here managed to learn a thing or two and discovered the entrance while you two were…"**

**Mare blushes and looks away towards the wall.**

**"We were betrayed," I answer. "By one of the group."**

**Kilorn gapes incredulously. "Emander?! But he was—"**

**"One of Maven's soldiers," Mare replies. "He wasn't a prisoner at Corros. He was a guard."**

**Farley rounds on me. "Do you know what that means, Prince?"**

**"We'll need to do a thorough interview of everyone who came back from Corros, but that's no reason to assume—"**

**"It's damn good reason to assume! You brought this risk upon everyone when you brought in Silvers off the street without a thorough background check-that's your first mistake. You let them intermingle with Reds-your second mistake. Need me to continue to point out how inept you both are? I will conduct the interrogations."**

**"Interviews," I emphasize again, this time just as harsh to match her attitude. "You aren't interrogating anyone, and no action is taken upon any of them without my direct involvement."**

**Farley and I have a standoff for what feels like ages while Mare and Kilorn stand awkwardly around us. Kilorn is the first to break the silence as usual.**

**"Right, well since Farley and I did all the work of moving everyone from atrium to base, you two are behind on the grand tour. Let's go make things uncomfortable inside our new humble camp, shall we?"**


	20. Chapter 20

"We left you two the room farthest down the corridors…unless you want separate rooms?" Forever lacking subtlety, Kilorn looks between Cal and I pointedly. When neither of us answer him, he continues on as if nothing happened. "Bad news is, the base's heat source doesn't extend this far, which is why the next few rooms and yours are deserted. Good news is, this bedroom is niiiiice," he drawls out. "I totally would have picked this one myself if it weren't for Ada picking the room closest to the library, and therefore leading me to pick the room closest to Ada, if you catch my drift."

"What I'm catching," Farley cuts in on her approach, "is goddamn headache from your yapping, Warren. Tour is over. Barrow, go see Sara Skonos in medic to get your sorry—"

"Sara?!" I exclaim. "If she's here, that means Julian…"

"Sure as hell didn't miss your interruptions," Farley grumbles. "Yes, Julian Jacos is here as well. Your Highness and I are going to go have a chat with him about our questionable Silver additions. You are to see Sara."

"I'm fine. I want to see Jul—"

"Barrow! Go. See. Sara. It's not a request."

I'm taken aback by Farley's order, or rather, her ferocity accompanying her order. She's always had a bite, but it's like she's sharpened her fangs and claws and glare since the last time I saw her. Granted, the last time I saw her is when we buried Shade, so Farley could be making up for her mean streak withdrawals.

"Mare, go," Cal gently coaxes me with a touch to my back. I jerk away from him, still bitter and angry even thought I'd told myself I would let it go.

"Of course you're on her side," I mumble with a resentful hiss. Cal opens his mouth to rebut, but I roll my eyes and dismiss him with a 'whatever' before he can say anything, then walk down the hall with Kilorn shuffling his feet to keep up and direct me to the small but efficient micro-hospital inside the base. Really it's just one large room and smaller one-on-one exam rooms with what looks like a one-way observation windows. Sara is attending to a few of the group, a mix between Reds, Silvers, and Newbloods, sorting out old wounds and aches. Some of them are skittish around her, given that she cannot talk to any of them, and I wonder if any of the Silvers recognize who she is or why she's silent. They must, I soon presume, as one or two of them look at her with mild scrutiny and the others, the more enlightened I suppose, look at her sympathetically. Once she has finished with the last of them, she turns to see me and nods her head toward the office. Though everyone else is filing out, I'm grateful for the privacy she takes into consideration. I tell Kilorn to go on with them and make sure everyone is keeping the peace with Farley and Cal otherwise occupied. Really, I just want some space and quiet.

It's awkward having Sara stand over me to heal various parts of my body without saying a word to her. She points to the dressing on the back of my neck, where the nasty scar from my and Cal's handiwork stands out among the pale scars of lightning from Maven's clicking device. She asks my permission to heal this one, and I comply. Unlike the others, which I hold onto almost like tattoos, this one is wretched and serves no purpose that I want to keep. Once healed, I stretch out my body for the first time in what feels like ages. There's no painful spasm, no sore overextended muscle, no fear of what will hurt if I move a certain way. Now I'm just left with an exhaustion from a long day. When I sit up, I find Sara looking straight at me and it catches me off guard. But instead of feeling uncomfortable, I'm curious. Sara doesn't normally look any of us directly in the eye; I suspect this is from years of avoiding the harsh and judging glares of her peers. She's lovely though, and her eyes swim with sadness and acceptance beyond anything I could comprehend. Her hand clasps my left should, a gentle yet firm grip that says more than her mouth can, but in that moment, I can read everything in her face. I understand the meaning of what she's about to do before she even does it, though I still gasp and tense when she pulls me against her and holds me tightly to her chest.

With no one around and no one to tell, I begin to cry silently. She holds me even tighter and the choking sound out of my mouth sets off a series of whimpers and hiccups to compete against wet sniffles and wails. At first I'm crying because pf her tenderness—a woman who hardly knows me and has held a life way worse off than mine, then I cry because I'm angry and fed up with my world and what's becoming of it, then because of Cal, then Shade because even though he's here, he isn't here. Sara patiently holds me until I've finished, when the weight of it all is a little lighter-even if only temporary. My anger and the accompanying pain is like a glass of water, and every time I spill some to make more room, it fills up again that much quicker.

We pull away at the same time and I look away, embarrassed by my outburst however grateful I am for it. Sarah gently holds my chin and pulls me back to look at her. With a sad nod, she places her hand over my heart and smiles, and somehow I understand the meaning of this gesture loud and clear, too.

I smile a genuine smile, give her a quick hug and a whisper of 'thank you' before I run off to the room I'll share with Cal. The time is well into the evening now, leaving the corridors and common rooms empty. Everyone must have turned in already thanks to better food, courtesy of Farley, and warm beds. No longer are they sharing cramped cots and making the best of the floor with dilapidated cushions and thin blankets. I get turned around a few times and end up in the library, covered wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling with dusty books. Some are plain and boring in their binding; others have bright creatures and figures drawn onto the front. I've never been one for books, not like Shade was, but I am grateful for advanced literacy as a result of Shade's tutelage. Well, advanced by Stilts standards. He taught me to read from a very early age and always insisted on reading to me and teaching me to read back to him before bed every night. Still, I lack the appreciation for books the way Shade did. He could, and would, sit with a book for hours unmoving before he was conscripted. I spend my time running my fingers over the spines and wishing Shade could see this. Maybe he already has in another time.

There's a little nook carved into the shelves where someone from long ago left a half-written note and a few other personal belongings. It's the only indicator that someone outside of us has been in here. The note is written in a sort of fancy writing I have a hard time reading clearly, but it looks to have been hurried before it suddenly drops off with a scribbling line at the end of its last word. Thinking it may be interesting, I pocket it along with another object I think could be useful. With the halls dark and quiet, I get the feeling of foreboding that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand. I don't like the unknown, but fortunately having electricity at the ready helps to bolster my confidence. I've had too many surprises in the last 5 months so I walk quickly through the halls to my room with Cal anyway.

When I get to the door, I find Cal so deep in concentration that he doesn't hear me enter or shut the door softly behind me. He's propped upright on the bed with his legs outstretched and his back against the headboard. It's a proper bed, like any one you'd find in the royal palaces, though it lacks the same ornate detailing in the wooden posts. There are at least four pillows—my excitement for these and the plush white feather-stuffed comforter almost give me away. In Cal's lap are his books and notebooks he writes in, and though I've seen this sight a hundred times now, I still stare at him for a few minutes before he can sense my presence. He looks up and blinks a few times to clear the focused gaze resulting from concentrated reading, but his expression remains neutral, hesitant.

With his attention fully on me now, I awkwardly chew on my bottom lip, unsure of what to say when I'm on the spot, and I watch closely as Cal's eyes dart down to my mouth. His pupils get smaller, something I've noticed usually leads to...more between us, but this is the first time I've seen it firsthand as a reaction to my actions. Maybe I should ask Kilorn about this, but I quickly decide that would be too weird. Perhaps Ada.

"You're thinking too hard," he says softly enough to permeate my thoughts without startling me.

At first I smile, and when he smiles broadly back at me I start to giggle. I don't know why; maybe because he's sitting so casually in bed that it feels strangely normal. I mean the normalcy of it feels especially weird because we're in the middle of all this shit, and yet Cal sits in bed with nothing but cotton pants—real pajamas for once—and no shirt, with books all over the bed and notebooks in his lap, a couple pens tossed around, and a smile that warms me inside out. In another life, I can see me coming into this room and whining about him taking up the bed with his books. I'd push them to his side and burrow myself beneath the luxurious bedding, where I'd fall into a deep and peaceful slumber that Cal would eventually give into so he could curl next to me. It is a silly thought, but I crave the simplicity of it.

He doesn't stop looking at me in the way that makes my whole body attentive to him, so I opt to change the subject and hopefully distract him before the intensity overwhelms me and I succumb in ways that'll probably be bad for both of us. "I brought you something," I tell him nervously.

"Show me."

I move to the bed and sit on the very edge near Cal's hip, and though he scoots over to allow me extra room, I stay perched on the edge to avoid getting too close. Out of my jacket pocket I pull out what I'd found in the library, depositing the letter on the bedside table and the other object I lay in his open hand. I've never seen them in the Stilts, but I've seen people in other towns wear these devices, and I deduced judging by only the Reds that wore them that it wasn't for aesthetic reasons.

"It's just that I've seen you squinting when you read, and I thought maybe these would help. I'm not really sure how they work…"

Surprised, Cal takes them from my hand and examines the glasses closely. I'm surprised at how different he looks when he puts them on. At first I laugh, thinking he looks so ridiculous and un-Cal like. He tilts his head to the side and quirks an eyebrow at me beneath the clear lenses surrounded by dark frames. Actually, he kind of looks like a much younger Julian. Very studious and academic. That's when they start to grow on me, and it's like seeing a different side to Cal. Not the severe warrior, but the bookish learner who takes up interest in musty pages and scribbles faster than his hand can keep up with his brain. Not the guy who can shoot a perfect shot from a distance with moving targets, but the one who writes his notes in these little all-capital letters and sometimes has perfect loopy script off to the side for reasons I haven't figured out yet. When my laugh turns into a thoughtful grin, he pulls me onto his lap with a sheepish grin himself.

"Well? How do they look?"

I curl my fingers into his hair with repetitive strokes, unconsciously relaxing him and me. "They look good." My breathy voice makes me nervous, or it's Cal's heady gaze that holds me still while my insides squirm. I almost look away, almost get up from his lap, almost clear my throat and excuse myself to go work on some nonexistent project but suddenly Cal's hands are on either side of my face to pull me to him.

He stops just when my lips graze his, and I open my eyes to find his closed. "Cal?" I whisper. Why did he stop? We've kissed countless times before. What's different about this now?

When he opens his eyes I can feel his eyelashes hit mine, but I can't move back. His eyes are all warm liquid fire and swirling with gold and completely mesmerizing. Judging by his gaze, Cal is just as transfixed by me. "Mare..." I shake my head against his to break the spell, but it doesn't alleviate the rising temperature. "I want you," he continues. "More than I can stand it sometimes."

"You have me, Cal," I answer back, as though it were obvious. It feels obvious to me.

"Do I?"

I swing one of my legs over his so I'm straddling his lap. I've never sat this closely to him like this before, and it feels...almost overwhelming, if I'm honest. "You do," I tell him. What we're both refusing to say is how long this will last. How long before I run? Cal assumes it, but I actually know running is inevitable though I'm not totally convinced there isn't a way around it. Shade said every decision I make from here on out changes things. Maybe the right amount of choices will change our future without my departure.

Cal moves his hands down to cup my neck and tenderly presses his lips to mine. But this isn't enough to quench the fire between us. My knuckles tug at his hair because I want more from him. I want strong, unyielding, passionate Cal. I want the Cal that loses control with me and gives me permission to do the same. The kiss deepens, but he still won't meet me there. So I do something, despite all my ignorance, that I know is dangerous. I squeeze my thighs around his waist and press my body against his. In this position on top of Cal, I have more physical control and I use that to my advantage. Inadvertently I rock against him to move forward, but his sharp hiss tells me the movement is just what I need to unravel him.

I nervously bite the inside of my cheek as I try the movement again, and I watch Cal's eyes shoot open to meet mine. His hands slide down my body, they hold onto my hips, and his fingers grip tightly to keep me from moving again.

"I know what you're doing." His admonishment is one of surprise, but it's the way his voice sounds gravelly and deeper that tells me he's not angry with me for leading this where I both know we want to go.

So I don't ask him if he wants me to stop. I don't even acknowledge he's said anything. I kiss him and boldly lick the tip of my tongue over his bottom lip. His mouth opens for me to explore; I do so greedily. My tongue meets his, warm and supple, and we quickly fall into a rhythm of our mouths dancing against one another's. I press my body to his and urge him to let go of my hips and touch me everywhere else. I want the trails of scorching heat he leaves with his fingertips when he traces my scars, I want his palms ever-so-lightly cupping the curves of me, and I want, no, no I _need_ more.

I place my hands over his without ever once breaking our kiss and, guiding him, I slowly gather the hem of my shirt as we start bringing it up together. He stops at the top of my ribs, so close I can feel his knuckles skim the lace of my bra. I'm almost panting with anticipation, but I force myself to calm down and wait for him to continue. I can see the thoughts play out over his face.

"You're thinking too hard," I tease, but Cal doesn't laugh. He looks at me so seriously, trying to figure this, _me_ , out.

"Cal, I want this. I want this with you. I-" I swallow hard to stall while I find the right words. "I don't want to die without experiencing this with you." I don't miss his cringe at the word "die".

"Mare, what happened with Emander. That's-"

"That's a regular Tuesday, Cal. Tomorrow it'll be something else to either you or me. Then the Choke. Then Maven. Scarlet Guard gone rogue. Silver spies. Reds with one hell of a deal they can't refuse. Something. We are the most wanted people in Norta. There's always going to be something, we're always going to be fighting something somewhere, and I don't want to keep fighting this," I gesture between him and I, "anymore."

He doesn't say anything. No movement. No smile. No fucking blink. He just stares at me, waiting, willing me to say it. He wants me to tell him something we both want toe maybe even need to hear.

"I can't give you those three words, Cal. I just…I can't yet. If that's what you're waiting on, then I'm sorry but I can't." I silently beg for him to understand, to be what I need without the words I can't bear to let go of just yet. Or maybe ever if I have to leave soon. If I keep those three words with me, then I'll never have to take them back. I'll never regret them. If I don't let them go, I can still hold onto a part of me that's mine and mine alone.

If I'm not his to love, I'm not his to lose.

Just when I think this is foolish, when I'm about to give up and walk away into a quiet empty room, Cal's hands flatten onto my ribs. His thumbs hook over my shirt, and in one smooth motion, it's on the floor. He lays a kiss on my jaw, trails several more down the side of my neck, and across my throat. He stops right where my pulse hums at that delicate spot, and I feel his tongue circle around it before he places an open-mouthed kiss right atop the frantic beating. I bite my lip to stop the sound from escaping my throat and with a growl Cal captures my bottom lip between his teeth and nibbles it with a few pulls into his mouth. Beneath me, Cal is pressing himself against the junction of my thighs and this time I can't stop the moan that escapes when I finally pay attention to how incredible that feels.

Cal leans forward until his laying me back, until he's hovering over me and we're both taking in small huffs of air. With the escalation of my body's responses, I have to fight to keep my electricity contained and judging by the tension in Cal's muscles—from the tick of his jaw to his taut biceps and prominent abdominal strain—he's struggling to keep himself in check, too.

I don't know why the thought suddenly bothers me, but it does and I have to know. "Have you ever…?"

He shakes his head. "Only you." He thinks for a moment, then raises his eyebrow at me. He's asking me the same. I flush crimson.

"Well there's not much else a fishing boy and thief girl can do in the Stilts." I'm aiming for some levity, but Cal's hands get so hot on either side of me and his eyes grow so wide that I worry he'll set the bed on fire with me in it.

"I'm joking! Cal, no, god. No, we never did— _I've_ never—not with anyone," I finish with a nervous giggle. "Sorry, don't blow me up." I scrunch my nose to stop from laughing at his reaction, but he definitely notices and narrows his eyes and me.

One of his now-cooled hands splays on my side before sliding underneath me to lift my hips to his. "Burners don't explode things. That's Oblivions."

"Thanks, Lady Blonos." Inwardly, I'm cursing myself for the series of jokes meant to stifle my nerves.

Cal sets me down with a playful growl and lowers himself until his body is almost completely flush with mine. He props himself up with one elbow and combs his fingers through my hair. "I won't hurt you."

I nod, knowing what he means and relieved he knows me well enough to see through my attempts at humor. My once-loud breathing has stopped entirely as I hold my breath underneath him. He makes me wait, though I don't know if that's his intention or if he's just getting over his own nerves, but I do so in total silence until I feel like I might pass out if I don't take a deep lungful of air soon. He kisses reverently down my neck, over my newly healed collarbone, and lower until his lips are on me in a place and in a way I've never felt before. Maddeningly and blissfully slowly, I fall into the kind of abyss I never knew could exist.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (The smut version of the previous chapter and in both POVs. Not a necessary read if you aren't into that.)

**_Holy fuck, holy fuck._ I don't know what to do with myself. I hover over Mare like any moment the weight of this will crush her. I want to touch her, but having never gone this far with anyone, how much is too much too fast? What's the buildup protocol? What is the gameplan?**

**I've read about sex in the Old World novels before. Father never touched the subject with us, but Elara did—and awkwardly. I'd read about it though. Heard fellow soldiers and Reds in the taverns talk candidly and raucously about it. I know how it should work. I feel better that Mare is also just as new to this as I am… and maybe even more, since she surely hasn't had as much exposure to the subject as I have. But beneath me she looks incredulously calmer and more confident than I do.**

**_Get it together, Calore._ Underneath me, Mare arches her back enough to slip her hands underneath and deftly unclasp her bra. In one smooth and mesmerizing movement, she's maneuvered her arm from one strap and tosses it off to the side through the other strap. She's half-naked beneath me, but all I can look at is her rosy face. Her cheeks burn crimson, and her bottom lip gets pulled between her teeth as she lies there in a bundle of short-firing nerves. So she _is_ nervous.**

**I release a breath I didn't know I'd been holding and feel the tension melt away from my body. I realize she's waiting for me to make a move, but I want to memorize this moment between us. I want to photograph the memory of Mare underneath me, her breasts only a whisper away, and rising with each breath. She's beautiful, from the depths of brown in her eyes to the way her eyelashes frame them and flutter against my puffs of air.**

**Finally, Mare breaks the silence and pulls me from the trance where I've taken up residence. "Cal…?"**

**I blink a few times, realizing my quiet staring is probably making her uncomfortable right after she's undressed half of herself. "Sorry, I just—you are breathtaking."**

**She gets impossibly redder and averts her eyes from me, but I take her chin to pull her back. My face hovers over hers, relishing her warm pants into my mouth like she's breathing life back into me. I crash my lips against hers and immediately suck her bottom lip in between mine. The vibration of her moan travels south to its only destination; the cotton does little to hide the evidence of my arousal that I rub against her thigh to get the slightest bit of friction for any kind of relief. I learn quickly it only makes the desire that much stronger.**

**Finally, _fucking finally_ , I get the nerve to make my way down to her breasts. They rise and fall with every raspy lungful of air Mare draws in, but unlike before, I'm sure and confident in what I'm about to do next. My brain has switched off, and I've stopped overthinking and overworrying about what to do, so I can give myself xompletely to her.**

**I ghost my lips over the swell of her breast; it's a touch as light as a feather and Mare arches under me to bring me where she really wants me. I resist, though, and lift my head a fraction above her skin. My nose brushes along the curves, and I switch to her other breast to do the same. I know it's driving her crazy, these light touches, but she's beautiful to watch this way. Wanting and needing me, letting go of her thoughts and allowing her body to chase her desire. It has unforeseen effects on me, however, because Mare writhes her lower body against mine in a bid for attention, and when I drop my hips between her legs, Mare immediately pulls her knees up to my waist and wraps her legs around the backs of mine. I have a feeling Mare and I will develop this game of who can out-tease whom. But for now, I want her too badly to compete. I latch my mouth onto her nipple and swirl my tongue around it, and _my god_ the sounds she makes! Her hand fumbles to find my arm until her hand grips mine. I mean to interlock my fingers with hers, but she's moved my hand to her other breast and squeezes her hand over mine. My mouth never stops its ministrations over her, and though she's got a series of gasps and 'mmmm's tumbling off her lips, I want to hear that one sound she makes again. And again. And again.**

**I graze my bottom teeth underneath her nipple until my lips once again close into a perfect 'o'—and there it is, her crying out, the quiver in her voice, and the whimper that follows. I switch sides with a loud ' _pop!_ ' as I break suction, picking up where my fingers left off. Between my fingers I roll her hard peak and she cries out again. This time on the tail end is a muffled "fuck", which I've only ever heard her use twice before and it's never been sexier than it is now.**

**"Cal," she whines, "please."**

**I get her need, I feel it too, but I want to savor all of this. I don't know how long these things are supposed to last, and I imagine I won't last long once I'm inside her. I feel like I'm about to go off right now with her squirming underneath and against me. Every movement she makes forces me to adjust my position on her to alleviate the throbbing. She keeps writhing anyway, not that I can blame her, though I suspect it's intentional. There's no way she doesn't feel how hard I am.**

**"Mare," I grit out between clenched teeth when I can't take it anymore. "You're going to finish this much quicker than either of us want if you keep doing that."**

**She raises her arms over her head and bunches her hair into her fists. With her eyes closed, she forces herself to breathe slower to calm down; little whimpers escape with each breath. With her like this, flushed and almost comically exasperated in a position I've seen her sleep in a dozen times and have had dreams about two dozen more, I let go of the nervousness that has been holding me back. Forget slow and steady. All I want is to feel her. With my hands running over her hips, my fingertips dip into her waistband and I watch her eyes fly open. She lifts her hips, the silent gesture assuring me to keep going, and I hook into the lace of her underwear and pull them lower with her pants—over her slender calves, past the arches of her feet until the fabric is discarded somewhere on the floor.**

**To keep myself from coming right then and there, I move her leg in between mine so her thigh is firmly pressed against me. I lean all my body weight into this one spot so the pressure is enough to hold me off. What I don't expect is to feel a wet heat on my own cotton-clad thigh. Because I'm a masochist who wants to embarrass himself, I risk a glance down at her now fully naked body. I see dark spot on my otherwise light grey pants and just a couple inches from that is Mare's sex, glistening in the dim lamplight.**

**My voice catches in my throat and hundred swears play on repeat in my head. "You're beautiful," I murmur. And she is. I had absolutely no expectations but fuck, she looks breathtaking.**

**I look up at her and say it again so she knows I mean it, and I watch her swallow anxiously. I don't know shit about sex outside of crude gossip, but I figure it probably doesn't work with one of us naked. Mare is also done with being the only physically vulnerable one here, so with nimble fingers she pulls on the tie at my waist. It doesn't do much since the pants fit me perfectly anyway, but Mare boldly wraps them around her hand once and pulls me toward her. With my body flush against hers, I marvel at how soft and gentle she feels against the hardened planes of my chest and muscular thighs. Her body is feminine and plush, but there's a lean strength to her legs from all her running. It's with those legs that she wraps around my waist and curls her toes into my waistband. Her thighs grip my middle firmly at the same time she leans her head up to kiss me. I slip my hand underneath her and grab her ass and _fuck me_ if that yelp she makes has me smirking against her lip.**

**Mare makes quick and haphazard work of getting my pants down, so I finish off the rest by kicking them off my feet to the foot of my bed. Now that I am completely naked above her, I think it hits both of us that what we're about to do is going to change everything for us.**

* * *

Is it normal to shake this much? I wonder if he can feel it or if it's just everything inside me going crazy over what is really happening right now. He sets his knee between my legs, where I am so wet it's a little humiliating. Cal doesn't seem to mind; in fact, it was like he was even more turned on by it, though how he could be _more_ turned on than he is now, I don't know. With him now kneeling in front of me, my eyes grow wide as I finally see what's been digging into my thigh for the last however long. Of course I have nothing to compare this to, but it's certainly nothing short of impressive. I'm so busy gawking that I don't notice Cal is taking off his bracelets until he sets them down onto the bedside table. With my attention back on his face, I see Cal looking as vulnerable as he must feel, although, I know this has absolutely nothing to do with his clothes being somewhere on the bed. No, this exposure is because his biggest security measure is sitting an arm's reach from him. His bracelets, what gives his ability life and what gives this man his power beyond the ability, look like harmless trinkets without Cal's wrists occupying them. I'm physically no match for Cal. I know this, and he knows this, but for the first time in our awakened state, the balance shifts in favor of the girl who can make lightning in the void with no artificial assistance.

"I won't hurt you," I whisper to him, repeating back the words he said to me only moments ago.

He nods, whether to reassure himself or because he believes me, I don't know. But before I can insist it, he lies down over me, ready. My hands shake, and I don't know where to place them with the threat of sparks at my fingertips, so he intertwines our fingers and raises my hands above my head. He lets go for a moment to reach down and positions himself at my opening. I shut my eyes tightly as my desperately-needy body betrays its own lust by tensing in self-interest. I feel the tip of his erection graze against me, easily gliding along the seam of my sex. I purse my lips to stifle my moan into a pathetic ' _mmmm_ ' and damn, I'm so glad this room is far from the occupied others.

"Don't do that," Cal mumbles against my mouth. "I want to hear you. I want to see you."

I slowly open my heavy eyelids to see his warm amber eyes only a couple inches from mine. His are filled with determination and anticipation. I wonder what he sees in me. Cal slowly starts to kiss me; his tongue teases mine in a similar way to how he's teasing me below. With my legs wrapped firmly around his lower back, I bring myself up and Cal slips inside me at least an inch, taking us both by glorious— _sweet gods is it glorious_ —surprise. He doesn't move any farther but instead kisses me as if his life depended on it. I didn't think anything could distract me from what it feels like to have him inside me, but this kiss is something else, unlike any other kiss we've ever shared. Everything falls away except his lips against mine, his tongue coaxing and pushing, his teeth nipping, and the pressure starts to build deep in my belly, when—

"OH!" My moan is loud and thankfully muffled by Cal's mouth over mine. He's sheathed himself what feels like as far as he can go, and my fingertips come to life with sparks that I quickly clench away in my fist. His forehead pressed to mine, he waits quietly and patiently for me to nod when I'm okay. I blink a few times to get rid of whatever moisture has seeped into my eyes and nod again when I'm sure it's passed. "I'm okay," I whisper.

Cal remains still to watch me carefully, so it's up to me to move against him to get things going again. When he's finally convinced I'm not going to shatter beneath him, he starts to move haphazardly at first, then establishes a rhythm that proves to be in synch with mine. He swells inside me, and that trembling low in my belly starts rising faster than I can keep up with. Should I tell him I'm almost there? Does he somehow already know by his pace quickening? In between our moans, we steal whatever breath we have from one another with kisses alternating between tender and passionate. Cal shifts his weight so every move thrusts harder against me; it's like a light switch furiously switching on and off with every thrust. When his hips pull back it's a split second of noticeable absence and anticipation, but when his body hits mine, it's a tiny explosion of the most incredible feeling. When he moves faster, I can't distinguish between the breaks anymore.

My whole body goes tense and rigid under him as the build becomes nearly unbearable but he's relentless with it and doesn't falter one bit. "Oh god, oh, fu-Cal!" I say his name again and again between a series of oh's and mm's. Cal grabs my wrists and keeps them pinned above me as I ride out this exquisite release. Suddenly I'm empty and Cal himself grunts loudly against my neck at the same time I feel hot liquid on top of my thigh. Next time we definitely need to have provisions for this sort of thing.

 _Next time_. Holy shit. I can't believe we just—and will there be a next time? Did Cal…? I mean I guess he enjoyed it because the evidence is dripping down the side of my thigh, but is that a guarantee?

"Mare," Cal mumbles in a raspy groan against my chest where his sweaty head rests. My heart races beneath his cheek as I prepare myself for whatever it is he's about to tell me. "Yeah?" I answer quietly. Even to me, my voice sounds small.

"You're thinking too hard."

I chuckle softly and run my fingers through his hair as the rise and fall of my chest returns to normal, and though I struggle with Cal's extra weight, I find myself desperate to cling to him. I feel myself drifting to sleep, and somewhere between the space of sleep and awake, Cal moves us underneath the luxuriously soft blankets. He holds me to him, my back to his chest as we've done every night together, but now it _means_ something. It's not just the two of us sharing a bed for ambiguous and unspoken reasons. Now this has meaning, tangible and undeniable meaning. Just before I'm out, I gather all my will and strength to turn myself over and face him, chest to chest. If he's surprised, he doesn't show it. Instead, Cal kisses the top of my head before resting his chin on it, and the last thing I hear before I'm asleep is the hum of a familiar love song.


	22. Chapter 22

"Mare, what is it?"

I don't answer him immediately when I've bolted upright in our bed, trying to wrap my head around the dream that felt so real that I'm not sure it wasn't another vision. Panting and pulling my hair off my neck sticky with sweat, I look around the walls for any indication of Silent Stone, but the lamp doesn't reveal much. I spark my hand to life with electricity to illuminate the room and scan the walls frantically from where I'm sat rigidly on the bed. Nothing.

"Mare?"

When I've resolved that it was just a dream, a morbidly vivid one at that, I finally answer Cal. "Just a dream." _I'm going to vomit at its intensity, I'm sure of it._ Something nags at me, a lingering threat from my dream that I struggle through the sleepy haze to remember. With a shake of my head, I feel the last vestiges of my dream escape me and curse myself for not remembering something I'm sure is important. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep."

But I should know better because Cal is the same guy who wakes up at 5:30, no later, every single day of the week. Once he's awake, he's awake for good, and I don't know that I can go back to sleep right now anyway.

So I lie back down and turn away from him in case he's studying me. I feel guilty for doing this, because last night should have made us closer, more honest. Shouldn't we be spilling our darkest fears into each other's laps and using sex as a newly-discovered outlet for pent up frustrations? But I'm still me, and devirginized Mare still doesn't like the emotional intimacy of telling Cal all my problems and feelings. I hear him sigh against me and roll away; suddenly he's gone very warm, which for Cal could mean anything. But the feeling in my gut tells me it's out of anger. Next he's sitting up and stretching, and I know from familiarity that in 10 minutes he'll be dressed and out the door. I don't want him to leave, or at least I don't want to stay in a suddenly cold bed just because I can't pull my head out of my ass to talk to the guy.

"Last night…why did you take your bracelets off? I've never seen you remove them before."

"Because I don't remove them," he answers simply. From the sound of it, Cal's talking to the wall opposite us and hasn't turned back to look at me just as I haven't turned to look at him.

"Even in the shower?" I ask. I flip my body over so I'm lying on my side and facing Cal's muscular back. I rake my eyes over the sinewy muscles around his shoulders, the divots on the small of his back on either side of his spine. I want to reach out and touch him, trace my lips along the scars of battle littering his otherwise smooth skin, but I do none of that. Instead I wait for him to come back to bed. We couldn't have slept more than a few hours. My body is still heavy with sleep and sore from earlier. I wonder if I can lure him back under the covers with a few well-placed kisses, but even to me, the one of us in this bed with questionable morals, it feels wrong to use this newfound connection for the sole purpose of manipulation.

Cal leans his neck back, another stretch and subtle demonstration that he does not wish to discuss this. "So you can ask me about why I do what I do, but I can't ask you? Hardly seems fair."

He's right, but I won't apologize for it. He knows the girl he's with.

Just as I know that Cal is… Cal. He does the right thing because his sense of duty require him to, so he gets over his grudge against my tight-lipped reason for waking him and lies back down next to me. I chance wiggling over to his body, but there's no need to worry. He accepts me warmly without hesitation.

I watch him create a small lantern and place it on the bedside table. With outstretched fingers, I absorb the light from the lamp on the opposite table, the one on my side, ignoring the whining in my head from all the electricity that's more abundant at this base than anything in the tunnels or the Notch. Above his chest, Cal holds out his wrists and moves them so they glimmer off the flickering flame.

"When I was 6, I had a nightmare, something silly like any little kid would have. Most kids cry and yell for their parents. Some piss the bed. I accidentally set my room on fire using flames from the wall sconces. Maven was next to me. He was only 2 at the time, but he'd learned to sneak into my room in the middle of the night because he was afraid of the dark. He couldn't sleep alone, but Elara would never allow him to share my room knowingly."

In my head, I snort at the revelation that the boy born and raised in the shadows was once afraid of it. Though I wonder if he truly overcame that fear at all. Come to think of it, have I?

Cal continues. "When he felt the first lick of fire, he rolled out of my bed and hit the floor screaming wildly. The Sentinels came before Elara, and my father followed shortly behind her. Elara was frantic, of course. She went on for days about the possible deadly outcomes, each one more absurd than the last, until my father eventually told her he was sick of hearing her go on about it. That's when my father gave me my first set of bracelets, and I began training on how to control the fire through them."

I run my finger tip over the markings on the bands and realize Cal's name is engraved into each of the bracelets, along with the scribe, 'Tiberias Calore VII, Crown Prince of Norta, Flame of the North.' What a heavy burden to bear.

"To others, they represent diligence, and power. To me, they're security. With them, I always have the advantage. Without them…"

"No fire," I answer.

"No control," he corrects.

I harp on it because that's just who I am, and I have to know. "But why take them off last night? If taking them off gives you anxiety, why not leave them on? I wouldn't have minded."

"You deserved it," he shrugs. He doesn't say anymore, effectively ending the conversation when he wraps me into his arms and asks how I feel. I blush because I know what he's referring to, and truth is, while I'm sore, I feel really good. Less tense, more relaxed, and oddly more confident.

"I'm good, Cal." I'm eternally grateful that we don't have any awkward 'how was it for you?' exchanges following. Instead Cal smiles and affirms he's good too, and we fall back into an un-awkward natural rhythm of making out. We both feel bolder exploring each other's bodies, so it isn't long before I'm thrashing against the sheets with Cal following only seconds after. I'm in a sheen of sweat and want to run for the shower, but sleep is too tempting. Just as I feel my head start to make the final plunge into peaceful sleep, Cal pulls my hair back from my ear and asks me what has been burning a hole in his mind ever since I nearly lurched out of bed. "What woke you up?"

I'm too tired to argue with him, nor do I want him to pull away or worse, leave me alone. "Last words Elara said to me…well, not said. The last thought she put in my head before I killed her. She said I would destroy everything I love in a quest to destroy the things I don't. Then all that would be left is me in the wreckage of my own making."

Cal squeezes me tighter. When he speaks, it's laced with so much sympathy that my stomach churns. "Mare, Elara, she—She just wanted to—"

'I know," I interject. "I know how she operated. It just sticks. No matter what you do, she burrows in your head, and it's so hard to get her out." What I don't tell Cal is that her words are like an infection, poisoning my every thought with her threat, or warning. I've even considered this is why Maven is the way he is. Maybe he was exposed to too much of her poison that he can never recover. Maybe he never wanted any of this until she got into his head and forced him to. I wonder if Cal sees this, too, and if this is why he can't kill Maven.

"What else is going on?"

"What?" His question takes me by surprise. I just told him what woke me up, what else does he want?

"You've been distant since we went into the caves.""

"Yeah well maybe it has something to do with your best friend plotting to murder me and almost succeeding," I bite back. There's no mistaking the bitterness in my voice, nor Cal's flinch behind me.

"I'm talking before that." He speaks softly, coaxing an explanation from me like he would a tantruming child. "Even before Emander, something's been off with you."

I hit my pillow a few times to fluff it and pull away from Cal with an annoyed grunt. "'I'm tired, Cal. Drop it."

"Whatever it is, Mare, you can tell me." It's a sincere plea and one I can't answer. For Shade. For us. For the little ruddy-cheeked boy somewhere in our future.

I sigh shakily in relief that he can't see my face scrunch up as my throat and nose begin to burn with tears I'm fighting. "Goodnight, Cal."

* * *

In the morning when I wake, Cal is long gone judging by the chill on his side of the bed. Interestingly, it took me a few minutes as I was waking to realize this because he'd placed his pillows behind me in such a way that felt like his body lying next to mine. I wonder if he's been awake all this time, after I'd shrugged off his questioning and dismissed him unceremoniously. With a long stretch on the luxurious bed beneath me, I roll into his pillow to relish in the clean, woodsy scent he's left. In privacy, I can inhale deeply and let the scent comfort me. There's a new and unexpected element to this act now that catches me off-guard. Instead of the warmth that radiates through my body and relaxes my tense muscles, it now pools deep into my belly and elicits a tingling between my legs where I've had the pleasure, quite literally, of experiencing him.

Now that's we have experienced each other more intimately than before, will we do it again? _I hope so_. It's almost a _need_ how urgently I want him again. That connection, the kissing, his hands on me, and the build-up before the release, and _oh god_ , the release. When I catch myself near-panting in bed is when I pull myself out of this fantasy and head to the mercifully hot shower.

I head off in search of food and people in this labyrinth of a base where corridors open into big rooms with more corridors. It reminds me of a spider's web, so as I round another corner back to the library for the second time, I'm aggravated with myself for not paying attention in Kilorn's tour.

The swift-strongarm hybrid Joshua pops up next to me almost as fast as Shade used to, but in Joshua's case, his brute force makes him heavy and just a smidgen louder than lighter-than-feather swifts. "You need to work on your entrance," I tease. "I could hear you coming from a mile away."

"Could not," he argues, but one raised eyebrow at him and he smiles sheepishly. "Yeah I guess it could use some practice. You look lost."

"I'm trying to find the kitchen. Or Cal and Kilorn."

"Haven't seen those two all morning, but I can lead you to the kitchen. Trick is to go straight through the doors instead of walking around the circles." Sure enough, I see each room has a narrow plush carpet running through its middle connecting one door to its opposite. We follow the path through two rooms until we reach the open and airy kitchen. There's another door, which makes me think there's no limit to how far deep we can go into the base, but unlike the others with solid wood, this one is reinforced metal. It looks…formidable, to say the least. Secretive and daunting is more like it. In fact, this entire place is a mystery. Interconnected rooms in a strange layout, walls that look like doors an bookcases that act like doors. Joshua answers my unspoken curiosity. "That door is the only one that was locked in the entire base. Marqus was going to blow it out, but that scary new blonde threatened to imprint his face into it. What's her deal? I can't decide whether she's cool or a total bitch."

"She's a Commander of the Scarlet Guard and she'll have your balls before you figure it out, so do as she says. She's the reason we're all still alive." It's both a reprimand and a warning. I get what Joshua means, but Farley has done more for out cause than anyone, including me.

I leave him there to think about it and retreat to the extraordinary dining table. Even more remarkable, it has to be longer than any table in the palace. There's also an abundance of food laid out, which I silently moan and mouthwater over. Fruits, loaves of bread Farley must have brought in, cinnamon porridge that Nanny spoons for each kid in line with their bowls. I feel so guilty watching all the hungry kids lapping over seconds, maybe even thirds, knowing how that feels and angry with myself that we can't do any better for them. Since I can go long periods without eating, I pick up a handful of small red fruits I've never seen before and leave the rest for the others, figuring I'll eat leftovers later after everyone else has had their fill.

I make my way toward a refrigerator to explore its contents—juice! Real orange juice! After pouring a glass, I pop the smooth round red fruit on a stem into my mouth. Sara, who I hadn't noticed sitting at the kitchen's island, rushes over and holds her hand out to gesture 'stop'. I nearly choke in surprise, but I don't move an inch. Sara opens my hand and breaks one of the small fruit open to show something brown on the inside. She taps it with her fingernail, it's hard and solid, and she pulls it from the juice flesh and discards it into the trash. I guess she's saying not to eat this part? I bite carefully into what's in my mouth and my teeth meet the hard center, just like Sara showed me. I try to eat the red soft stuff around it, and it tastes like a strange mix of sweet and slightly tangy. Nothing I've ever tasted before, but easily a new favorite. I spit the seed into my hand; sure enough, it would have broken my teeth if I had not been forewarned.

"Thank you, Sara." She smiles and nods, giving me a friendly pat on my shoulder. "Do you know where Julian is?" I am eager to see him; there's so much to ask about: the Silent Stone in the caves, the Newbloods we have here, advancing to The Choke, Emander. Maybe I could even tell him about Shade. He wouldn't tell anyone, I think. Not if I asked to keep it between us. Sara points to the metal door I'd seen earlier and gestures talking with her hands. "Like a meeting? Without me? Is Cal in there, too? Farley?" Sara, wide-eyed at sensing my turn in mood, nods with some hesitation. I narrow my eyes at the door. "Kilorn?" Again Sara nods nervously. I thank her again and head straight in, not giving a damn about the meeting they obviously didn't bother to wait to include me in.

The door is locked, but funnily enough, it's an electronic lock with numbers on a keypad. I bet I can just fry the whole thing, but that will only piss off Farley who likely wants to retain the security of whatever this room is. I chew on my bottom lip while I figure out what to do. If I can focus on the way the electricity flows in the wiring, maybe I can manipulate it to turn the locking mechanism. If I mess up the whole thing, well it's their damn fault for keeping secrets from me anyhow.

Within a couple minutes, I've done it. The door unlatches but I have no time to gloat triumphantly. Cal is the only one to overreact at the sudden intrusion, lighting his hand on fire which instinctively triggers a ball of sparks in my own. When Cal realizes it's me, he stands down and has the grace to look embarrassed by his reaction.

"Nice of you to barge in, Barrow," Farley quips. Everyone sits around a large semi-circle table, and it reminds me of the one courtroom in the Stilts. Farley sits in the center, Cal to her left, Julian to his left. To her right is a Scarlet Guard member I don't recognize, then Kilorn, then Ada.

"Sorry, my invitation must have been lost in the post," I remark dryly.

Kilorn and Cal both open their mouths to refute the implication, but it's Kilorn who speaks first. "We didn't discuss anything big, Mare. We just reviewed what's been happening since we dropped Farley at Tuck, after when you had your…you know, human 'lec box malfunction."

Cal cringes at his word choice, but I just roll my eyes. Then I narrow them pointedly at Cal. "You didn't think to wake me?"

"You tossed and turned all night. I thought you could use the sleep."

 _I could have slept better if you'd stayed with me instead of running off to pout._ My lips purse to keep me from saying the words out loud with our audience, but I hope he sees it in my glare nonetheless.

"Are we gonna keep wasting time making you feel better, Barrow, or do you want to take a seat so we can continue?" Farley snaps.

I sit next to Ada, subconsciously aligning myself opposite of Cal. The Scarlet Guard soldier I don't know offers me his seat, but I decline politely. From this vantage I can meet Cal's gaze. While his is a storm of emotions, mine scorches with intensity. Let him feel uncomfortable.

"Maven is advancing the Red child-soldiers four days from now. We intercepted a dispatch sent up there to the Choke. They should be there, on Choke's ground, by day five. There are expected to be 1,000 Red children on the front lines, day one. This is just the first group going up. No word on the other 4,000 or where they're being kept."

We all stare at Farley wide-eyed and jaw dropped, except for Cal and Julian. Julian looks solemn, and pained. Cal is busy working in his head. I know the look so well that I can practically see the thoughts racing through his mind like any Whisper could.

"He's annihilating them," I murmur incredulously. "He's marching them to their deaths and already has their replacements lined up." My chest begins heaving as my breathing picks up and I verge on panicking. All those lives lost in an instant. More just waiting to meet the same fate. "What's the point? What's the goddamn point?! He could just as quickly execute them himself!"

"Mare—" Kilorn begins, but he's quickly interrupted by Cal.

"Maven's point is to demonstrate his power. He is making us responsible for their deaths." Cal just barely emphasizes 'us', and I know he doesn't mean everyone in this room. No, he's narrowed it down to the only two who could be responsible for such vitriolic chaos. _We_ created this monster. _We_ are responsible for these deaths. I lock eyes with him, trying to decipher whether he blames me for this. Do I hold more weight in this duo of 'us' that instigated this new, dirty war?

The words come out of my mouth so hushed that I don't know that everyone can hear me, but he does. "And if we surrender?"

Julian speaks up for the first time, but when he does, it's demonstrative and purposeful. "It will make no difference. Maven will not have mercy, Mare. Not for you, and certainly not for any of them."

Still, I could bargain for their lives. Five _thousand_ children. More to come. That's all of Stilts' youth and more—wiped off in less than a week. I don't expect Cal to give in, and I wouldn't want him to, but certainly my life holds value to Maven. If nothing else, so he can gloat and parade me through the streets as his trophy. I don't notice Cal scrutinizing the thoughts running over my face: my pursed lips, which I bite every now and again, my furrowed brow, the fear and pain in my eyes as I imagine life without Cal and enslavement under Maven. When I chance a quick glance at Cal, his bright goldenrod irises stare anxiously into mine.

Meanwhile, the group is continuing the roundabout conversation. "So we intercept. We come in with our airjets, and we save them." Kilorn wants to sound sure and confident, and his heart certainly does, but the mission he proposes is dim. Maven will only round up more children just to spite the Guard.

Ada shakes her head in thought. "We can't do it while they're at the Choke. We would be fighting Silvers on both sides in addition to trying to save Reds on the battlefield. Fighting three battles at once-it's impossible with our numbers."

Shade's voice comes back into my head, the reminder what I and I alone must do to stop this.

"We cut them off in four days," Farley muses. "They won't expect it the day before battle, and we have a better chance of saving them all. We'll be tight on getting provisions, but it shouldn't be impossible with the Newbloods we have on-hand."

"And the Silvers," says Cal.

But Farley is quick to counter. "No Silvers. We don't know who's fighting for us, and what rats will scurry out from under us if given the opportunity to get back in favor with His Royal Highness, King _Mavey_."

Cal's teeth clench as he grits out, "We've discussed this, _Diana_. They've all been vetted this morning. None of them will go back under Maven's rule. They're with us. I'd stake my life on it."

Kilorn snorts. As far as those two have come, Kilorn is naturally distrusting. Cal's word may mean something to me, but it doesn't mean anything to the rest of them. "Would you stake hers?"

I feel the blush creep up my neck as everyone exchanges looks between Cal and me. I look away, because unlike them, I have no morbid curiosity for Cal's answer. I already know what it is.

"Yes."

"Fine," Farley relents. "But they're under my command, not yours, Calore. Between turncoat Silvers, Newbloods, and the Guard, both Lakelanders and Nortan, we just may be able to pull this off. Everyone will need to go into training, effective immediately. Calore and Barrow, I expect you to get your Newbloods up to scratch. I went them in control of their abilities, ready and willing to fight. Warren, you will take the Reds in your age bracket. Anyone who wants to fight and can fight, you give them a gun and teach them to use it worth a damn."

Ada furiously takes notes, although she doesn't need to. I suspect this is more to calm her nerves. "Who all can we expect from Maven's side?"

Cal answers her, naming off the number of Silver soldiers in the legion, strikingly a fraction of the Reds. He names off a few notable Silvers who are sure to be there on the opening battle day; as he does, the familiar tug of something I am supposed to remember is at me again. It takes a maddening effort to silence the voices around me, planning and arguing the details, so I can pull out whatever it is that is so important.

"—of course, and Evangeline will—"

"Evangeline," I murmur, interrupting Cal. He stops to listen, ignoring Farley's sigh of annoyance at my constant disruptions. Suddenly, I realize what's been annoying me since last night's dream. My eyes grow wide and a small gasp escapes while I furiously stare down Cal. "And Ptolemus."

"No, Ptolemus is dead, Mare." Kilorn turns to Cal, completely unaware of the storm brewing inside of me. "You killed him back at Corros."

At that, Cal's brows raise just a fraction at me, silently willing me to understand. The lights in the room flicker, the only sign at the fury that I'm barely holding back inside me.

"Emander said Ptolemus and Evangeline were both trailing after us. You said you killed him," I hiss.

"I fought him, Mare. I didn't expect him to survive that. I-I never said I killed him."

The crackle in the air is almost palpable. The hairs on my arm stand, and I'm sure if I were looking anywhere else but at Cal, I would see the electricity pulsing in the air around them, too. "But you never said you didn't! You let me believe… After Shade, and-I…You let me believe he was dead! How could you? _How dare you_? All this time, you know." My voices breaks on the last word; my hands curls into fists at my side, the pulse of electricity flickering the lights above us.

One of the long lightbulbs running the length of the room sizzles and pops, plunging us into considerably dim light. Ada hesitantly stands, Kilorn with her. "We'll leave you two," he whispers. Farley dismisses everyone else, and I absentmindedly watch Julian place his hand on Cal's shoulder with a reassuring squeeze. It feels like a sign of allegiance; it stings like a betrayal.

"Mare… I didn't think he'd survive," he repeats.

"You didn't ensure he was dead either! You can bet your ass Ptolemus ensured Shade's death when he speared through his heart! Did you forget he was aiming for me? Or does that not matter to you as much as preserving your precious Silver court?" I pop the second lightbulb, now the only light in the room and bring it back to it's struggling life. My chest heaves with anger and hurt and ultimately, frustration. He hesitated with Emander. He let Ptolemus go. Shade was right. Goddamn it, Shade was right. He would never kill Maven on his own.

"Mare, reign it in," Farley warns. It's the rarest of times when she uses my first name, but it's the tenderness of it that soothes the rough edges of my frayed nerves.

I shut my eyes as if I can make all of this end just by wishing it away. As if every controlled inhale and exhale is a ritual that will lead to peace and quiet. Tears burn behind my eyelids and I blink them away quickly before anyone suspects.

"You should've told me, Cal," I resign. "You shouldn't have sat there and let me go on about Ptolemus being dead all the while not knowing if it were true. A lie of omission is still a lie. You should know how much that hurts; you learned that from me." I taste the bitterness in my mouth at my own self-flagellating, but I need him to recognize the similarity and why this stings so much. Will we _ever_ get over these betrayals?

To his credit, he holds my angry gaze where I would've certainly looked away in shame. But the guilt reads plainly on his face, because unlike mine, Cal's pride does not interfere with his self-awareness. He knows he was in the wrong, and he's remorseful for it. So I make the decision to compartmentalize this stab with the rest of them and let it go for the time being.

Farley's back to her tactless demeanor when she clears her throat and tells Cal to leave us. I don't watch him get up, so I don't see him hesitate when he opens his mouth to say something that I would likely shrug off anyway. I focus on the table ahead of me, watching the tiny black spots float around in my vision. Anything to keep from engaging Cal beyond my final word.

I expect her to chastise me for losing control, or maybe even give me another warning about Cal and his loyalties, but Farley surprises me by sinking back into her chair with her hands furiously rubbing over her face. It gives me a small smile, knowing this is the same thing Shade would do when he had a head full of thoughts.

But then I see tears in her eyes, angry tears, and I feel like an intruder in a lion's cage. "This is all such a clusterfuck. I shouldn't have left you to fend for yourself after Shade…died." She furiously wipes the salty tracks away with the back of her hand, a long unceremonious sniff before she delivers a crushing blow. "I thought I was doing the right thing. It would have been what he wanted, I think. I was pregnant. Not that far along, but far enough. We'd suspected...but you helped to confirm it. Back on the jet, remember? I couldn't stay and fight, not after losing Shade and having the only piece of him left growing in me."

I blink a few times at her admission and roll the word on endless loop inside my brain. _Pregnant. Pregnant._ Holy shit. Wait. _Was_ pregnant? With a gasp, I cover my mouth and lean forward toward her. No, _oh please, no_. "You-what do you mean? You're not…did something happen?"

Farley nods until I realize she's shaking and sobbing into her arms where they've crossed on top of the table. Her explanation comes muffled between her crying, and I can barely understand her, but I understand enough. "A few…spotting…cramping... the nurse said…and then so much blood. So much damn blood."

I want to reach out and touch her; I want to comfort her, but I'm frozen to my chair with fear and aching so tangible that it replaces the electricity in my veins. The room goes cold, my throat burns with the urge to cry with her. I could have been an aunt. Shade could have been a father. My parents as grandparents. And Farley, a mom. Not the heap of a trembling mess sitting next to me, but a formidable, ass-kicking mom. There's a strangled sound that escapes my lips when I want to tell her Shade might still be alive. I want to tell her how I've been seeing him, _talking_ to him, that he knows our futures and he has been helping me to change things. Maybe I could change this, too. Maybe once Maven is dead, Shade can come back to exist in this time with all of us and they can have the family they deserved to have. I want to spill everything to her, if nothing else than to console her and give her hope, but I made a promise to my brother. I will hold to it even if it kills me. Even if it isn't real.

When she's calmed down to a few hiccups and whimpers in the half hour that passes, her steely resolve comes down like a mask of night and day. Whatever heartbreak Farley has underneath, and I have no doubt there is plenty of it, she hides it with rigid determination. "This isn't a world to bring a child into, anyway, so Barrow, let me be clear. What you with with Cal is your business, but don't be an idiot about it."

I'm so taken aback by her sudden insinuation that I choke on my own saliva. "Wh-I don't know what you mean." A blush deeply crimson burns my cheeks so ferociously that I almost break into a sweat. Or it's my nerves at having been caught.

With a wry smile, Farley stands up and shakes off the last vestiges of her public mourning. She does not need to tell me to keep this between us, and for that, I'm grateful for her trust. "It's written all over your face. And it's about damn time." Well there goes wondering if she approves or not.

When she reaches the heavy steel door, she pauses for an internal debate before she finally spits it out with a vengeance I've never heard from anyone before. I would be scared of it if I didn't feel the same way myself.

"When we finally run into Ptolemus Samos, _and we will_ , I want to deliver the final blow. For them. And I want Evangeline to suffer through it. For us."

"I will make sure of it. I promise."

And I always keep my promises.


	23. Chapter 23

After Farley leaves, I find myself sitting at the table in a state of shock and emotional exhaustion. How do I cope with this? How does Farley cope with double the loss? How does Cal deal with alienation from the life he's always known? The vulnerability of bearing my soul to anyone these days is raw and bruising, opening me up to too many crushing blows by misplacing my trust in people with personal agendas. I try telling myself that our sacrifices will build a better world, not only for us, but for the children of today and tomorrow. It is what puts me to sleep at night; an image of a rosy-cheeked child and a peaceful world that he can grows and explore without fear and treachery. I pour my hope into it like water through a sieve, because it never lasts and every night I keep pouring and crying, pouring and crying. If Cal notices, he doesn't say anything, or maybe he's just too numb with his own pain to take mine on with his.

"Don't kill me."

With a leap straight out of my seat and my heart hammering against my chest, I tumble spectacularly to the ground in a slew of grunts and curses. I can hear Shade's chuckle across from me, where he sits in the seat Cal vacated. He wears a blissfully oblivious grin that I've missed so much. "You okay there, Sparks?"

"Not a fan of that name," I grumble while pulling myself up.

"You'll get used to it. Trust me, I know you will." He taps his temple smugly, and I wonder how much he knows—if he knows about Farley, if I should bring it up.

When I return to my chair, I flop my head on the table with a hard _thump._ "Great. Could you tell me if I'm sleeping better in that time? I feel like I am going to die of exhaustion before I get there."

"Ah, I'm not supposed to tell you what happens in the future. Besides, it's always changing. No use in telling you what isn't guaranteed."

Slowly I lift my head, chewing over the words in my mouth that want so badly to ask Shade about his unborn child. "But some things are guaranteed, right? Like…like that kid Cal and I have—"

"Your son, Tanner," Shade interrupts. His correction is one of reverence, as if his name brings up fond memories that Shade is likely privy to.

I bite my lip, wanting to know but not knowing how to approach this subject. It's weird to talk about a child that doesn't exist, especially my own, with my older brother. Talking about my potential future children indicates I'm having sex with Cal, and I definitely don't want him sniffing up that trail right now. It was awkward enough with Mom, my Dad's gruff "Ruth, can you talk about this somewhere else? Preferably out of earshot!" ringing from the living room, and Gisa hiding around the corner in the kitchen, hoping to get a whiff of the serious conversation our mother had called me down for. I'm not sure what kind of talk Shade had, but given his amorous attention to nearly every girl his age in Stilts, I suspect our father was responsible for his. No matter how candid he was about what he did behind closed doors, I still wasn't ready to sit down and tell my brother the Crown Prince and his sister are having sex. With a casual shrug like it was nothing in the world, I press on. "What's he, Tanner, like?"

I watch Shade's eyes go wide before glazing over with a distant look off in memory lane. "Kind. Gentle. He has Cal's quiet calm. He's impulsive, like you. Temper like Cal's, thank the gods," he winks. "Loves to learn. Prefers when Cal reads to him, but has to see your face first every morning."

I wonder how far into the future this picturesque family lives. I don't recall Cal looking significantly older, but Silvers age better than Reds anyhow, so that wouldn't be a good indicator. Maybe I can sneak the ulterior motive in with an innocent question. "How old is he when I saw him in that one memory…What year was that again?" _Play it cool, Mare._

"He was 4, and nice try. Hey, you okay after what happened with that boy in the cave? I don't remember his name. Cal's friend."

I roll my eyes. "Yeah, thanks for that, by the way. You could have warned me, you know."

"Can't," is all Shade says. With a heavy sigh and a pout for extra measure, Shade debates saying more; I can see it on his face, from the ways his brows scrunch comically to the way his jaw ticks as he grinds his teeth.

"Mare, there are key things that are going to have to happen to get you to where you need to be in order to kill Maven and minimize the repercussions. I wish I could tell you these things, sis, I just can't. Time is always trying to correct itself. What we're doing now, it changes everything, but time still tries to restore the balance, shifting to put it back in line with what currently exists. For every move you make, time makes two to stay ahead of you. And drive you mad in the process."

"It's already driving me mad, Shade. Do you know what it's like to have this secret? To talk to you and not tell anyone? To know there's a child between Cal and I but I can't tell him? How frustrating it is to see everyone completely clueless for what's to come? To know you're in the same room Farley was just in not 10 minutes ago and not give her the monumental comfort of knowing you're still alive somehow?"

"Mare, I get why you're frustra—hold on, Diana? Why is she here?"

I don't realize the implications of what I have just said. I don't see the storm suddenly brewing in Shade's eyes or the way his heart has picked up to a racing pace. I don't notice his palms sweat or the way his breath has hitched with an inaudible gasp. No, instead I blink stupidly unaware that this little clue gives way to the bigger piece of information I've yet to tell Shade. "She flew in sometime within the last 48 hours. From Tuck. To help us with our rescue mission at the Choke." I'm just shy of playing dumb and Shade knows it.

Shade slams his fist on the table and starts a string of curses that all point to Farley. Suddenly he's up and pacing, trying to work out what is apparently news to him, which I suspect will alter the existing timeline and what that will mean for their future.

"Bro, I really think you should ease off her with everything she's been through. She could probably the distraction of battle now. She can handle herself out there better than any of us, don't worry."

"Mare, you don't get it. She's…shit, she isn't supposed to tell you until after the Choke, when you take the Red soldier-kids to Tuck."

"Tell me what?" _I already know, Shade. The mother of your child miscarried. She lost her baby. Your baby._ I swallow back the knot lodged in my throat.

His hesitation unnerves me. What more is there to tell? What else don't I know?

With a heavy sigh, Shade reluctantly speaks. "Mare, she's pregnant. That was why she left after Corros. She was supposed to stay at Tuck to have the baby. This is so _stupid!_ Risking her life is one thing. Risking our son's? I can't believe her."

"Shade…" It comes out like a stutter while I struggle with what to tell him. "Farley, she had a miscarriage. She's not pregnant anymore." His face contorts with confusion and then devastation.

Seconds pass, maybe even a full minute of Shade staring at me incredulously. This is the second time where I've felt I responsible for what I've done to Shade. The guilt I feel at having told him about Farley, coupled with guilt I carry at having indirectly contributed to his death, have me sick to my stomach with shared anguish. "I'm sorry, Shade. I thought you know. I'm so sorry. I didn't know that you didn't…."

"Everything's changing," he whispered. "Everything we do here changes what exists there. Nikolas…" Shade drops his head into his hands at the same time his knees drop to the floor. I watch with melancholy, trying to aimlessly rack my brain for a solution, any solution. But I'm in way over my head, and I am near-drowning in the enormity of it all.

"Nikolas? That's his name?"

A nod is all he gives me. If I were to go to him, I know he'd be in silent tears that I cannot bear to see. Shade is laughter and poetry. He's calm and sensible. He isn't silent sobs in a heap on the floor. That's not the brother I know.

"C'mon, Shade. You said time is always trying to correct itself. Maybe, maybe this time it will. Maybe if we do what you set out to do, we can kill Maven, win this war, and create a better world. You could exist in this time, with Farley. You could have more children. I know—I know it couldn't replace the one you lost, but maybe you didn't lose him. Maybe he just…hasn't come yet? But we could change all this and you could come back and you could _try_." Shade seems to ponder my words, as if it's a possibility that he had not considered but may work out after all. Hope sings through my body, twitching my fingers and toes at the prospect of having my brother back in my life permanently.

"I'll have to check on that. It may be against the rules, but maybe if enough things change, there can be an exception."

"What rules, Shade? You can go anywhere you want in time. No one else can do that. You make the rules."

"It isn't that simple, Mare. Messing with time has grave consequences. As you can see. I don't know what happens from here." He gets off his knees, looking heavy and weary with today's visit. When he kisses the top of my forehead, it makes me uneasy, although it shouldn't. If Shade doesn't know what's coming, then everything truly is up to us. He and I aren't just altering history. We're rewriting it.

"When did you say you were going up to the Choke?"

"Four days from now. November 1." _Cal's birthday is coming up. It'll be just before we leave._ Both Shade and I stop to think to ourselves: me, wondering what I'm supposed to get a crown prince for his birthday, and Shade, preparing to destroy that thought altogether.

"Move it up." He looks at his wrist, and I've only just noticed there's a device on it similar to a watch but smarter-looking. It's unlike any device I've ever seen before, not that I've seen many, but I know it's not from around here. "I need to go," he asserts abruptly.

"Shade, what do you—we can't move it up! Four days isn't enough time as it is!"

He grasps my by the shoulder and gets on eye level with me. With his hard stare inches from mine, I can see this look brokers no argument. "Mare, by day four, it will have been too late. Arrive the night before, before sunrise. Take the kids out in the night, take out the Silvers in their sleep. It's the only way you'll save as many as possible with fewer sacrifices as the price. You have to trust me on this. The next time I see you..." His eyes start glossing offer with unmistakable sadness; it's so intense it turns my mouth dry and my tongue numb. "Tell Diana first; she'll be coming in any second. When she agrees, and she will, then tell Cal. And remember, nothing else, Mare." He waits for my nod, which I do reluctantly give him. I ignore the tingling in the back of my head that tells me this is a bad idea. Three days. God, three days before the battle of our lives.

"I'll see you when I see you. Be safe, sis." One last hug before Shade steps back. My fingers itch with the urgency to reach out and grab him at the last moment so he'll take me with him. Just to see what I'm like in the future, what the kingdom is like, what Maven's defeat looks like. But then I remember my vision from the Silent Stone and the literal burning of my lungs as I threw myself into the flames to save Cal. I was too late then. I cannot be too late now.

It's Shade's voice that brings me back from the edge of where my panic begins to strangle me, a feeling I've been silently succumbing to more frequently as of late. "And Mare? You and that Prince? Use protection, will ya?"

My jaw drops and my face turns beet red, but Shade doesn't get a chance to hear my stammering for a pathetic denial before he disappears. The last feature I see on his familiar and comforting face is his smirk.


	24. Chapter 24

**I find Uncle Julian in the library, of course, after going toe-to-toe with Kilorn in an argument central to what happened to Ptolemus. Truthfully, I did think our fight back at Corros was enough to kill him. He wasn't dead when I walked away, but he wasn't exactly in the sprightliest of states either. I thought I'd left him there to die, a memory that gutted me then. Not because Ptolemus didn't deserve it. He killed Shade in cold blood, and it would have been Mare if Shade didn't have the misfortune of the unluckiest timing in the world. But it sits heavy in my gut because this war is coming down to conflicting odds: family turned to traitors, Silvers against Silvers, friend against friend. I'm having to pick off the comrades I have known all my life, one by one, until I get to the ultimate betrayal against my own blood, Maven. Despite all his evil, brought upon him by his mother, he is still my brother. Does he not deserve my forgiveness?**

**"In the Old World, they called it getting in the dog house."**

**Julian's nose is stuck in a book, but the mirth in his voice is unmistakable.**

**"I don't know what that means."**

**"Means you landed yourself in a world of trouble and you may not be sleeping in your own bed tonight."**

**"I haven't slept in my own bed since I left the palace."**

**Uncle Julian shakes his head and shuts his book softly, almost respectfully. Funny how he regards books more than he does most people. "You need to let it go, Cal. This duality you are trying to hold onto between two worlds. You need to let one go. You can't stand between them both and expect to keep the same friends and enemies."**

**"If it were up to Mare, I'd torch all the Silvers to ashes. But she doesn't have a throne to reclaim. She doesn't have a kingdom resting on her shoulders—a kingdom that is run by Silvers. When we defeat Maven, Uncle, we still have an entire country that needs a leader, and it's my birthright to be their King."**

**"What if I told you the country does not need a king, Cal?"**

**My eyebrows shoot up at the same time my jaw drops. No king? It's unheard of! It's foolish and stupid. Norta has had a King for thousands of years, and the Calores have held the throne for a a couple of centuries alone. "These people cannot govern themselves. Silvers would tear one another apart for power. They'd tear Reds apart just for sport. Our current reign may not be the most fair, but it guarantees everyone's safety."**

**"Hear me out, Cal. One monarchy to rule a divided nation is not going to bring peace to Norta. You don't represent the Reds, and you never will. But they demand representation. Equality. And now they have the strength and power with the Newbloods to achieve those objectives, and they have Mare as the face and name of their revolution. So while you may defeat Maven, a civil war is still at your doorstep, and make no mistake, Mare's loyalties do not lie with you."**

**It hits me like a punch to the gut. I've known it all along of course, that Mare would never choose me over her own kind, but to hear it from an outside perspective, and one who knows Mare's vulnerabilities arguably well, still knocks the wind right out of me.**

**"We've become…closer," I awkwardly explain. "Intimate. That must… I don't know, doesn't that change things between people?"**

**"Do you want it to change things between you?"**

**"I want her to trust me." It's simple and honest, but it isn't as honest as I ought to be. _I want her to love me. I want her to choose me over Maven, not out of necessity, but out of freewill._**

**At the same time, Julian and I turn towards the door to our right, where we can hear footsteps approaching down the hall. They aren't Mare's, that's for sure; she steps so lightly and gracefully that it is nearly impossible to detect any cadence to her walk. Whoever approaches is walking fast and demonstrative, similar to a soldier but with more entitled authority than necessary—Farley.**

**"Gentlemen," she nods when she stops outside the door. She surveys the two of us, scrutinizing me more than Uncle Julian, but I'm not surprised. If there is anyone who looks trustworthy and genuine, it's him. "We leave for the Choke in three days."**

**"Three days?!" I sputter. _Not enough time. Fuck, it's not nearly enough time._ "We agreed to four! Four days! We cannot train an army of conditioned men in three days, let alone a bunch of half-witted amateurs!"**

**Farley shrugs and turns on her heel to leave, effectively ending this argument that was never up for discussion to begin with. "Talk to your girlfriend about it. It was her plan."**


	25. Chapter 25

**I have not quite understood the idiomatic expression of "seeing red" until this very moment. The angry crimson that sits between the calm blue center of a flame and its flickering orange tip. It's the only color I see as I walk through the halls searching for Mare, and as the seconds tick, the anger expands to include frustration at having not located her already. She isn't in our room, nor in any of the common areas, nor the central command room behind the heavy electronic door she broke into. I feel my body heating and cooling as I work to control my emotions in my furious stomp around the base's grounds with everyone staring at me. Some openly gawk curiously. Others grab their children and shield them from me. I walk a thin line between not alienating these people and not giving a damn what they think, especially the latter when they recognize me as their Crown Prince and their stares are one of conditioned, but not earned, respect.**

**"Warren, where's Mare?"**

**The boy doesn't bother to look up as he takes another squelching bite into an apple and grotesquely slurps the juice. "Don't know." _Bullshit._**

**Irritated, I take a step closer so he feels the heat emanating off of me. Maybe he'll get the hint. "I don't have time for this, kid. Where is Mare?"**

**"You realize we're practically the same age, don't you, Royal Asshole?" Another slurp. "I said I don't know. I don't follow her around like a sad puppy dog with its Silver tail tucked between its legs."**

**The anger flares into black before I can control myself. With a sharp jerk, I've got Kilorn by the collar and his face inches from mine, his feet scrambling on the floor. If he's shocked, he doesn't show it. Instead he makes pointed glances around, each time returning to flit his eyes back to mine to indicate there is an audience and I'm making an ass of myself in front of them.**

**_I don't care._ **

**"Where is she?" I grit out. I make no move to release his shirt from my grip, despite feeling everyone closing in on us.**

**Kilorn's smirk comes just before he tilts his head in an odd direction, and then I feel it. I literally feel her electricity, but it feels wrong. It lacks all the romance and palpability of her presence when she enters a room. There are no warm tingles. No shudders from feeling her eyes scoping me out. Mare's anger doesn't burn bright red; hers is cold and flashes white and violent purple, I bet. Slowly, I let Kilorn go with a quiet growl and a jaw that ticks when I'm cornered. When I turn to her, a part of me wants to cower in her beauty. The way her lips pout softly under the hard-set of her chin. The way her eyelashes flutter gently when her eyes lock mine in a withering glare. How her chest barely rises and falls with every silent inhale. And the unmistakable way her fingers dance against her thighs to keep the sparks at bay. She's deadly alright, but breathtakingly so.**

**"I need to speak with you."**

**She scoffs at my slow and measured tone. The pretense doesn't escape her. I'm pissed and she knows it, and more importantly, she does not give a damn if we have it out in front of everyone around us. But as I watch her hands tense and flinch, I realize this is going to be more explosive than a lover's quarrel. "Mare," I make it a pointed gesture to look down at one of her hands just as tiny bolts of lightning dance on her knuckles. "Privately."**

**She turns on her heel and leads the way back to the caves, where our abilities are weakened by the Silent Stone around us. I don't know whether she did this with purpose, but if so, it's a smart move. Anything to muffle our physical lashes even if we cannot do the same for the emotional bruises we are about to inflict.**

**She crosses her arms in front of her chest in automatic defensive posturing, and it is at this exact moment that I change my tactic. Politics and bureaucracy are not my strong suit—Maven was always good at that game. I come from a military upbringing. War strategies, manipulating grounds and weapons—that is what I know. Manipulating people? That isn't for people like me. Mare is the best of both. She is tactical and pragmatic; she's an expert at getting herself into and out of sticky situations. She notices everything, every stitch and every flaw, and she has proven herself a dozen times over in the Bowl of Bones and outside of it. She can also exploit the best and worst of people. But Mare has pride and self-preservation like no one I have ever known, and I have to worry if her rash decisions lately are self-destructive and will drag us all down with her.**

**So I sit in front of her on a jagged rock that keeps me from getting as comfortable as I aim to appear. "Mare, what is this I hear from Farley about moving our strike day up by a full day?"**

**She chews on her bottom lip, betraying the livid but cool exterior she exudes. "You want to tell me what the hell you were doing grabbing Kilorn like that? He didn't DO anything to you!"**

**"The smug bastard knew where you were and had to be a smart-ass about it when I asked!"**

**"Newsflash, Cal! Humans do that! Kilorn knows me better than anyone here. If I don't want to be found, he isn't going to blurt out where I am just because you come barreling in like an animal demanding it!**

**I open my mouth to argue, but she cuts me off before I can scramble to find a retort.**

**"You have no power here, Cal. You're not their King. And you are not the only one of us with an ability. Someone doesn't give you something you want, do what the rest of us do and get the hell over it."**

**"Great, is this lecture over now? I want to know why you went to Farley and convinced her of your idiotic plan to move our timeline up, which we all mutually agreed upon not five hours ago, by a full day."**

**She blinks a few times, but I give her the time to talk. She won't extend the same courtesy to me of course, but I need to know what is going on in her head and something tells me this may be my only chance to get it. Her answer is disappointing, but unsurprising.**

**"I don't owe you an explanation. I ran it by Farley and she agreed. You don't need to know the reasons. You come with or you don't, but if you stay here you better be prepared to answer for it."**

**I ignore that slap in the face at her blatant disregard for me. I may not tell her everything, but I am always honest with her when she asks. She never fully brings that to the table of this relationship, and I have to wonder if I'm just the warm brother who isn't trying to kill her that she keeps around for comfort and pleasure, or if I hold any real lasting value to her at all. It is highly illogical to deviate from the point of this conversation by asking, but pained curiosity gets the better of me, so I do.**

**"Do I mean that little to you Mare? Forget that we're…whatever we are. I am not here to clean up your messes and keep my mouth shut. I have saved your life countless times, and I know the Choke better than you. I know Silver soldiers better than you. I know their battle maneuvers, the warning signs, the escape options all better than you do. Better than damn well anyone here. That is MY legion out there that you're about to run blindly into out of sheer impatience and stupidity." _Fuck_ , she's annoying. She is a child playing a game whose rules she does not understand. "Do you have any idea how impossible a task it is to train these people in three days? Do you know how big of a risk we are taking in this mission without the truncated deadline? I mean, hell Mare, do you even care? No, of course not, because when you go into battle you go in for yourself!"**

**I don't realize I'm up on my feet until I find myself a few steps in front of her. Her fists are balled to her sides, but her trembling anger doesn't faze me. Everything has been building to this moment, one that is long overdue, so I don't find it in me to stop the inevitable.**

**"Screw the other people around you. Screw the bigger picture. What Mare wants, Mare gets, and everyone is too scared of you to tell you otherwise! You talk to yourself—people have caught you, and I've heard it, too. Murmurs and whispers and secrets to nothing but shadows. You toss and turn relentlessly in your sleep. You scream in the middle of the night until I have to pull you to me and hold onto you until you stop shaking. You are distant and aloof. You walk around harboring the weight of the world like you are the only one who has suffered here. I'll just say it, Mare—you need help. You are mentally unfit to lead this team, let alone convince Farley who has been here for no more than 24 hours that we should abandon our outrageous plan for one even more suicidal!"**

**I expect her to attack me, if not with her ability then at least with a solid punch to my jaw, but she surprises me as usual. After a hard stare, she turns on her heel and head back for the base. "I don't have to listen to this shit," I hear her mumble as she walks away.**

**I quickly make to grab her and pull her back, but before my finger can close around her arm, I get the shock of a lifetime. Literally, because Mare's skin is alive with lightning simmering beneath her skin. I see it now, the soft white glow she emits as the electricity comes to life right before my eyes. She swings around to me and the look is something I can only describe as feral.**

**"YOU, Tiberias Calore, have no right—no fucking right to lecture ME! YOU! You who spends his days pouting and scowling that you aren't surrounded by luxury linens and handmaidens who do your bidding. YOU, who watches my brother die and lied to my face about having killed his killer! YOU, whose own brother turned you into public enemy number one, and yet you are too much of a coward to do what needs to be done!'**

**Suddenly fire races down my arms like waterfalls and pool into balls in my hands. My chest heaves with fury that has expanded and contracted under this heat until Mare breaks through my last vestiges of self-control with one final blow. "You don't deserve the crown of the King. Our entire future was in your hands and you _failed_ us!"**

**Lightning hits my feet and I instinctively step back, completely unaware that Mare is aiming it for me. I'm too consumed with looking into her for the first time in what feels like months and seeing the storm that has been silently brewing all this time.**

**She aims again, but it is way off the target and shatters into the rocks behind us. I don't even flinch as screams and hurls more lightning that I have to dodge and deflect. "So you think _I'm_ crazy?! You think _I_ am the most dangerous between the two of us?!"**

**"Your lovesick stupidity for a boy who easily played you cost us everything! My father, our country, your family, all those Red children. You fell in love with a snake and became his toy rat, a plaything, and we have _all_ paid the price for it!" The vitriolic words don't spew as easily and taste like vinegar, but I can't stop them. I think I want her to hate me as much as I hate her right now.**

**Another ball of lightning barrels toward my legs but I throw the fireball against it and relish in the crackling that echoes around the cave. I construct a scorching wall between us and use the time it's bought me to gather my thoughts and reign in my emotions that are burning just as wildly. This is what we do to one another, and it dawns on me like a new day, that this is all we will ever be. Pressurized accelerants waiting to combust from an undeniable spark.**

**Moments pass, how long I couldn't even muster a guess, but I can see Mare staring at the fire completely mesmerized. It's almost as though she is somewhere else entirely. Having my ability, I have long since become immune to the smoke and blurred vision, so I see her tears coming in rivulets down her cheeks as she frantically tries to gather her diminishing electricity into something more substantial. Her emotions are winning out, however, and though her arms tense and her brows scrunch tightly, she cannot bring anything to the surface.**

**This feeling I understand better than most. While in training, Elara would mention my mother and say how sad it must be to have made my own mother go away. The sadness would empty me until all I could see and feel was the engulfing darkness. Maven would come in and easily best me despite being a younger and less skilled. My flames were extinguished by unshed tears as I found myself in a subspace of fear and loss and sadness so deep it felt like I was drowning in it, and I was too young then to understand why. They train you how to control your anger and use it as a weapon, but not your pain. No one tells you what to do with your pain.**

**I keep the wall between us alive, but I can't bear to see her cry, so I coach her through it. Truthfully, I have no idea what I'm doing or why I'm doing it. I just know more than anything I want to go to her, but I won't. I can't keep doing this anymore.**

**"Mare, wherever you are right now," I coax gently, "wherever that place is, it's not real. This is real. This place is real." I watch her angry struggle to pull out of her the one sure thing that is hers and hers alone, but it doesn't come to her defense. Her defeat of herself aches in me. "It's there. It lives in you, but it lives here. In this place. Wherever you are, Mare, come back." The last her bolts die; her face tenses and scrunches under her strain, and her shame. I turn my plea into a whisper as I watch the woman I love, the woman I hate to love but the woman I love none the less, as she falls into the darkness that has been eating her alive since I first felt her finders slip into my pocket one balmy night outside of Stilts. "Come back," I whisper. "Come back to here and now and me."**


	26. Chapter 26

The memory pulses through me so quickly I feel dizzy and entranced in the red and orange flickering. There is Cal on his knees, just a short distance from me. Too far to reach out and touch him, but I can close the distance in seconds. Maven wouldn't have time to react before I reached them. The glint of the sword barely registers when I lock eyes with Cal. They've grown impossibly brighter over the years, and I'd like to think it's because of the life I have given him. Tonight, as his eyes bore into mine, the usual fiery goldenrod is eaten up by the dark black centers. His fear is palpable, but it isn't for himself. It's for me.

I look at him intently. Wait. I have a plan. I don't, but in the seconds it takes for me to get to them, I will.

Cal shakes his head. It's imperceptible to Maven, but I see it clearly.

Please.

The silver sword rises, and Maven's voice drips with gleeful malice. How could he hate his own brother this much? How did we create such a monster?

Why didn't we kill him when we had the chance?

The exchange happens as it always does, as it is currently forged in our future. The wall of flames goes up, and I am given no choice. I know he would want me to run to Tanner. He would want me to take him away and run as fast as I can, and maybe then I would have a chance to escape. I'm fast enough. Tanner is powerful beyond measure if only I could figure out how to unlock his ability to save us. Cal was always better at it than I was, but it would just be me now, and Cal would tell me in sincerest confidence that I could do it. He would want me to give our son the life he needs, but in my heart I know it isn't the life he deserves. If I don't burn alive, Cal will kill me for this. It's my only shot.

The smoke and intense heat begins to snug out my senses.

"Mare! NO! Mare! Get out! GO! You have to go!"

I cough through my rebuttal. I will not leave him. The flames lick at my feet, starting cinders on my long and heavy skirt as Cal tries to edge me out by manipulating the fire towards me.

I rip the offending layers from my waist and quickly cloak my head and shoulders. The fire is violent now, and it crosses my mind that this may be the last time I ever see the throne room even if we do survive this.

"Mare Calore! Don't you dare! Don't you dare do this!" I cast another bolt of lightning near Maven's shoulder where Cal has momentarily pinned him down. But Cal is distracted and Maven is murderous. Maven's fingertips touch the encrusted hilt of his sword, and every thought leaves my body as my feet leave the floor.

"Come back, Mare," he whispers. I don't know how I hear him with the rush of blood in my head, but I could find his voice anywhere. Even here in the darkness. "You can do this, but you have to come back. Mare..."

With a sharp inhale, my blurry vision clears and I start to focus again on the here and now, and the wall Cal has erupted in the middle of us. My hands suddenly spark back to life, surprising the shit out of Cal and I both, but I quickly sizzle out the veins of lightning twisting around my fingers. Shortly after, Cal extinguishes the wall.

I know Shade told me not to tell Cal, and I know Shade said it is absolutely imperative I keep our secret, but when Cal looks at me so desperately and pleading for answers that I cannot give him, it shatters everything he and I have worked to build within the last 6 months. I hate myself for this, for keeping him in the dark where Cal doesn't belong. Cal is the light. The beautiful, bright, burning light, and I am the darkness between us. I belong in the shadows just as Maven does.

"I know you don't understand," I finally say. The silence broken between us leaves a still air of tension and something else I can't quite my finger on. "I don't really even understand. But this is what I must do." I shrug and shake my head back into the firm resolve I walked in here with. "I can't tell you why, maybe one day. But I made a promise I won't break, not for you and not for anyone. If that isn't enough, then I am asking you to please help us. You don't have to go in three days; that's fair. But please help us until then."

Another quiet moment passes between us, longer and wearied with each breath we exchange. Finally, Cal nods, and in his crystal clear gold eyes, I know without a doubt I have broken him.


	27. Chapter 27

"Hold it, Layli!" I hear Cal shout from the center of our makeshift training room. Joshua, the strongarm-swift hybrid, darts around the inner circle where I presume Layli is standing. Although with Layli's ability of invisibility, I can't see her at all, but Joshua cuts across the circle in every which way trying to sense her. Lileth, the Newblood nurse who can manipulate feelings, stands by with Sara Skonos as they both anxiously await an inevitable injury. We've been training for two solid days, from dawn 'til dusk and some evening hours in between. The first day, we had no less than two dozen injuries tended to by the medical team, but this was to be expected, Cal said. None of the group had ever formally trained their abilities and certainly not to this intensity.

We divided the trainings into something akin to lessons. Farley and Kilorn worked on shooting and targeting—the tactical stuff. Cal, of course, took on harnessing their abilities and teaching them control. I worked primarily on agility and perception: teaching the Newbloods to outwit their opponents by paying attention to the details. Of course, my greatest strength was knowing when to run, and it's a skill that can't be taught. I tried, and maybe I'm just a terrible teacher, but I couldn't quite explain how to tell when survival meant knowing the precise moment of escape.

"I don't know, you just… you just feel it. It's not fear or surrender. It feels totally different. It feels, freeing. Like the moment of perfect clarity in the haze of battle," I'd said. Everyone, including Cal, shared a blank stare of confusion, leaving me feeling like a fish on dry land. Reds understood running and hiding on a fundamental level; we've been doing it all our lives, after all. Still, the innate sense of letting my feet take over, trusting my instinct and giving in to fast legs, was so different than what anyone else understood. How could I tell them that there were moments when my brain would shut off and my legs would take over? How could I explain it in the context of a girl who used her greatest human gift as a means to steal from her own all her life?

So instead I teach them to watch one another carefully to pinpoint weaknesses and use them to their advantage. "Gelus favors his right hand for freezing," I told Marqus during one session. "That is probably because he gets a stronger control from it, right Gelus? Here; watch as I throw these two oranges up and notice his aim and the strength of his freeze on the the left one. I almost guarantee he'll be off by a few millimeters." And he was, but Gelus took it good-naturedly despite later telling me that no one had ever noticed that about him before.

I break from my zoning out, something I have been doing quite often lately, when Layli suddenly appears in the group of Newblood onlookers who have watched Joshua run like a madman back and forth within the training circle. A few scream at the sudden surprise of Layli's close presence, and Joshua curses how unfair this exercise was because she was outside the circle the entire time.

"True," Cal concedes, "but that is something you should have noticed almost immediately after a few passes. Layli, excellent job thinking outside the circle, but you only held the concealment for 1 minute 30 this time. I want you to hold up to three minutes by the end of this session. Remember, find your center, where your ability is an extension of you, and stay in there."

"You also need to work in cloaking objects and other people," I pipe up from the entryway. I have been standing here watching Cal's session since I came back from my own secret training with Shade in the caves. Cal doesn't know where I have been sneaking off to and has lashed out at my tight-lipped responses by cold greetings and even colder arguments. At this point, I have given him every excuse I could think of until eventually I stopped giving any at all. The tension becomes thick with every step towards his group. "Invisibility as you are using it is a defensive weapon," I explain, much to Cal's annoyance. "So you can avoid being killed if you avoid being seen, that's great. But it doesn't contribute to our mission."

Farley comes over then, and nods in agreement. "We could use a concealment of the cargo jet. We'll be loading all the Red kids on there, so the closer we can get that airjet, the faster we can get it and get out."

Cal approaches behind Layli and puts his hand on her shoulder before motioning her to take a short break. "We'll pick up on concealing objects when you return," Cal murmurs to her, but his icy stare is fixed on me.

"Mare, to the side, please," he grits between his clenched teeth. Farley shrugs and picks up where Cal has left off. She is studying their abilities just like the rest of us, and using it to form a plan in conjunction with Ada, our human computer.

I reluctantly step over to the room's cobwebbed corner and brace myself for the barrage of questions and scolding.

"Look, I get by now that you think you are entitled to come and go as you damn well please around here, not telling me or anyone else where you are sneaking off to, but you're doing these kids a disservice when you miss your own lessons and come in to interrupt mine. They need you just as much as they need me, so if you're not going to work with them, then feel free to keep your goddamn comments to yourself."

I ignore his jab and point out the facts. The cold mask of indifference is getting easier and easier to put on nowadays. "Cal, they need to work on saving the others. It won't do any of us any good if they can control their powers but they can't do anything _useful_ with them. We only have one day left and they are nowhere near ready."

I am literally cornered when Cal braces his hands against the wall on either side of my head and steps closer to me. If I take a deep breath, my chest would skim his. The thought of it has my stomach fluttering with anticipation, tingles cascading everywhere throughout my body. After our big fight in the caves a few days ago, Cal and I barely made it back to the room before we were ripping each other's clothes off trying to frantically crawl inside one another for the comfort of each other's body. That's what it was, much to my dismay. Our physical relationship wasn't so much emotional communication as it was a physical need and our weaknesses that gave in to the desire. It's why I closed my eyes when he would draw out long waves of pleasure from me; it's why he always climbed out of bed immediately after to disappear until he knew I'd be asleep. Though we still always ended up cuddled together in sleep, the vulnerability coupled with the intense intimacy had both of us scratching at the walls trying to escape the box we kept putting ourselves in.

"And whose fault is that, Mare?" he growls, bringing me sharply back to the present. "You set the timeline, remember? You cut their training short by 24 hours, and you expect what?"

There's a feral hum in my throat that I have to swallow back. I hate his close proximity—how I can smell the sheen of musk on him from hours of training, how his hair is in disarray from running his hands through it, how his defined arms with visible lines of cut muscle trap me in, and the sweet mint on his breath. I hate it, and I love it, and behind all his anger and frustration with me, I can see the same glint in his eyes that surely reflect in mine. But Cal has more willpower when it comes to staying focused, and he soldiers on to make his point.

"Genuinely, I'm curious how you thought this would play out. They are doing the best they can, and you come in here looking for miracles."

"Not miracles," I argue. "I want them to learn something useful with their abilities, Cal. We can't afford to give them the Julian-style training that is memorable and effective, sure—it's what I'd want for all of them. But we haven't the time, and I am not going to have the timeline argument with you again, Cal. Goddammit, I'm not."

_I'm so tired_ , I want to tell him. Farley and I have been meeting before breakfast every morning to perfect a semblance of a plan to get us to The Choke, save the children, kill Ptolemus while we're there, and get everyone to safety. Where safety is, we haven't decided yet. There isn't enough room to house thousands at the base. They could go to Tuck, but if any of the Silvers follow us, we'd lead them right to Scarlet Guard headquarters. There is talk of the Scarlet Guard from the Lakelands helping us and taking them refugees in, but for how long and do we trust them? Following our morning two hour meetings, Farley and I are joined by the rest of the Guard, including Julian now, and Cal of course, to review the day's training plans and any updates. That's another hour—short and sweet under Farley's lead—and then it's training for the rest of the day and into the evening. I've met with Shade each day, sometimes in the middle of the night and other days, like today, during the afternoon when I'm supposed to be training the Newbloods. I don't sleep, but neither does Cal. He spends most of the night in the library and always comes to bed with his glasses halfway down his nose and a notebook that he's added to with several pages of scrawling notes. We're both tired and constantly trying to stay clear of one another, which is easy with our lopsided schedules.

Cal must see me dangling from the end of my rope and fortunately cuts me enough slack to pull myself up and return to training. Lately, this is how all of our arguments end, and I secretly worry he will extend enough leeway for me to hang myself with. His tolerance for my antics are intoxicating and terrifying, and I want him to fight back, but this is what I have whittled him down to: a man who gives a girl what she wants if only to keep her sanity in a place he has learned to cope with.


	28. Chapter 28

**My lesson concludes before I have broken a sweat, but Farley's and Kilorn's are wrapping up, so I decide to hang around in case anyone has questions or wants additional one-on-one training. Most Newbloods are too worn out by the end of the day to ask for more, but occasionally a Silver will want the rigorous training they grew accustomed to as members of the High Houses. There are very few of them present in here, but they are the most committed to retribution. They have been betrayed by their own blood and locked away like animals while their brothers and sisters marches by their cages. They have no mercy for who they will meet on the battlefield, and that bloodlust means they are itching for fights.**

**Which is how I find myself at odds with Marianne Osanos, a water weaver who is challenged by a few younger Newbloods who want to see the ultimate battle of fire versus water. We are both reluctant to spar, especially in front of Reds and Newbloods, but Kilorn quips that this "ain't nothin' new" to them, and I remember that Silvers put on this type of show for them pretty regularly. I was never a part of one myself, as a general rule of royalty, but that doesn't mean I had not heard of the grandstanding Silver duels. I wasn't much entertainment as it was a gross display of power, but tradition has its purposes. Kilorn seems oddly thrilled with this show, taking as close of a spectator stand as possible while maintaining a respectful distance for his own safety.**

**Another Silver from the High Houses, one who is familiar with the trainings as we know them, calls the duel into its official start, and Osanos shows her inexperience too quickly. She depletes all of the training room's water resources within the first several minutes, and I have barely managed to scorch a square foot of ground beneath her, effectively dodging most of her blows with familiar ease. I have faced her cousins and even her aunt and uncle; I have no doubts they would be heavily disappointed in her sloppiness.**

**Next to Kilorn, Mare watches, but not with any interest. I'd like to think it's because she saw the Osanos girl was harmless from the beginning, but something tells me Mare hates these duels, either because her experience with them are a plague on her memory or her general disgust of Silvers boasting of abilities to put others in their place. Julian calls is peacocking; an unnecessary display of how powerful we are at no real cost of Silver lives. From that perspective, I can see why she would hate the whole tradition.**

**After Osanos walks away defeated and huffing, the Newblood Oblivion, Marqus, calls Mare to the makeshift arena. "Aw c'mon, Mare, you've trained with Cal more than any of us. If anyone can beat him, it's you!" I wince at the implication and narrowly avoid the glares exchanging from the surrounding Silvers.**

**Mare just rolls her eyes and refuses to move into the circle. I'll admit that I wouldn't mind the challenge, and Mare is one hell of a challenger, but this would definitely be problematic for us. Kilorn nudges her and whispers something in her ear with a sly grin. She chuckles once but shakes her head at him. For whatever reason, her shift in demeanor towards Kilorn is irritating—always warm and kind with him, even when she is hellfire toward me.**

**So maybe that is the reason I egg her on to spar. "C'mon, Mare. Think of it as a training demonstration for these runts."**

**She isn't amused. In fact, if anything, she's even more annoyed with me for putting her on the spot. "I'm good, thanks."**

**But then the Newbloods start to join in, some with convincing arguments and others plain whining, and with a final push from Kilorn, Mare reluctantly enters the circle.**

**"I'll go easy on you," I tease, hoping to lighten her mood and soften the frayed edges of her ever-present anger.**

**"Don't bother. I won't." She raises a challenging eyebrow and begins stretching as if she's bored. I almost think she's making a cocky show of it, but right as I'm about to bite out a rude comment, she strikes a small bolt at my feet. I jump back and narrowly avoid burning the leather of my boots. Normally, I would nitpick her use of ability as her first move—it's an amateur's mistake—but Mare knows what she's doing, and Mare is no amateur. This was her "screw you" strike meant to make an emotional statement. It has nothing to do with our training exercise.**

**I lunge for her then, but she is impossibly quick on her feet. I haven't forgotten, but I do consistently underestimate her. She knows it, too. She stays along the outermost perimeter of the circle as she recognizes I won't make any big moves with an audience so close to her. It's not technically cheating because she hasn't left the circle, but it is about damn near close as she can get. It's manipulative and calculating, using her surroundings to her advantage to force us into this dance of wills. She's also impatient, and after a couple of minutes stalking around the circle, she aims a small ball of electricity at my feet. It splatters and shocks my ankles in an unpleasant series of stings and burns. Having my ability means that tI am impervious to the burn of fire, but these jolts are enough to make me wince. In that brief moment of weakness, Mare runs at me before dipping into a low crouch and sweeping both my legs out from under me. I hit the mat with a heavy thud and she wastes no time getting her feet on either side of my ribs to crouch over me. Her body is slithering in white and purple flickers which makes it impossible to touch her without electrocuting myself. The lights around us flicker as she consumes their energy to produce her force field, but how long she can keep this up, I don't know. I do something I know is cruel of me then, so I do it quickly before the guilt gets to me. At the end of her long ponytail, I flick a small spark that begins burning the gray ends of her hair. The smell of it singeing is almost immediate, and it's enough to catch Mare off-guard so suddenly that she drops her defenses to shake her head wildly with a frantic scream. I grab both her ankles and pull them sharply underneath my armpits where I lock her in place while she falls back onto my legs. With a roll, I flip her over onto her stomach and pin her arms at the small of her back and use my bodyweight on top of hers to keep her still between the mat and my stronger frame. She wiggles and grunts, trying to spark up, but I increase my body heat to ward off the small stings of her much smaller sparks.**

**"The shield is a neat trick," I murmur into her ear, relishing in her delicious shudder beneath me, "but it looks like it depletes your energy too soon. Ready to call it?" Just to taunt her, I want to run the tip of my tongue over the shell of her ear, but playing dirty isn't my style, nor do I want it to be.**

**Suddenly the lights pop off at the same time Mare powers up again. The force of her sudden jolt of electricity throws me back several feet to the tune of everyone's collective yelps and gasps. _Fuck, that hurt_. In the complete dark now, finding her without drawing attention to myself is impossible. Mare is strikingly good at sneaking around in the dark, and before I realize it, she's in front of me with her hand slowly inching up my arm and around my neck. I ignore everyone's complaints about not being able to see anything, because I'm too distracted to say or do anything other than feel her warm and soft fingertips playing at the nape of my neck. Her breathing is steady, unlike my shaky but quiet pants that must have tickled her nose because she presses the tip of her nose to mine and shakes it a bit. I want to chuckle at this move, but again, I'm transfixed by her. With no light and only a keen awareness of her body next to mine, an audience of eyes watching but unseeing, I would love nothing more than to cross several inappropriate lines of public affection to have her right here.**

**Her lips touch mine like a whisper until suddenly, maddeningly, Mare's hand grips my neck as she pivots around me and swings herself onto my back before planting her knee into the curvature of my spine and bringing me to my knees. I easily flip her over my head and onto her back before getting my mouth close enough to her ear to growl, "That was a low blow even for you, Barrow."**

**She kicks her feet to try to leverage herself upright, but before she scrambles up, I've lit the circle around us with small flames that keeps her from passing without obstructing everyone's vision or breathing. Out of options, Mare knows better than to engage in hand-to-hand combat with me, and I notice she's tried to avoid it this entire match. I file this away to work on later, because she's going to have to learn not to be so self-reliant on her ability. It's too predictable, and it'll only be a matter of time before an opponent either bests her or, like Maven, finds a way to cheat it.**

**She dodges a few of my jabs, I've caught her a couple times in the shoulder and the ribs—and that's me holding back. She must know it, too, because she calls me out on it and demands better from me.**

**_You can't handle better,_ I want to tell her, but for the sake of her pride in front of all these people, I do not. I encouraged her into this after all, and if I want her to continue training and improving, I can't embarrass her in front of her peers and her team. For what it's worth, Mare doesn't hold back. She meets a few of my blows with counterblows of her own, but mostly she deflects my movements with lightning strikes. I draw back each time I feel the shock, then remember to heat my fists to get through her electric shield. Those hurt her the worst and leave bright red imprints of my knuckles on her skin, but she doesn't call it quits so neither do I. I continue to force her back closer to the flames until she'll have to concede to the loss, but Mare's stubbornness is a goddamn wonder. The flames lick at her shins and I _know_ they must burn, but it's almost as if she's daring me to let her get seriously injured. In the background, I see Sara Skonos bouncing anxiously on her heels ready to jump in and heal the two of us. Mare looks worse for wear, and I'm sure I'm no better with electric burns marring my body and a few cuts to my face where her lightning split the skin.**

**Just before she steps right into the fire, I wrap my arm around her middle and yank her to me. She immediately locks her right foot around my right ankle and tries to pull it out from under us, but it's an obvious move and one I can easily withstand. Mare's hands grab me at my biceps and emit one hell of a double shock that has me instinctively pushing her away. This time, when she aims for my ankles, she succeeds, but I can see it in the limp of her body and her heavy breathing that she's exhausted. With a final fireball near her, she stumbles out of the way and rolls onto the ground beside me. I swing my leg over hers and lock it underneath her thighs, then quickly pulls her arms over her head and pin them down. She struggles, even slams her forehead against mine, but finally she gives in with a furious stomp of her left foot onto the mat.**

**The surrounding flames extinguish, and though I want to stay like this with her, if nothing more than to feel her body beneath mine, Mare has grown angry, distant, and cold at having lost and expended all of her energy. I roll off and get up to retrieve a towel and wipe off the sweat dripping down my forehead and into the stinging cuts.**

**"Great! Who's hungry?" Kilorn shouts to a chuckling room.**

**Everyone begins filing out, and I stand to the side to watch Sara run to Mare and set about healing her. Mare shakes her head and waves her off. "I'm fine, Sara. Really, just some light bruising."**

**That's not entirely true. There are a few marks that look like bad sunburns and a couple of particularly bad burns on her lower legs. Sara insists on healing those at least by taking Mares ankles into her hands despite Mare's protests. She leaves the bruises and the other marks when Mare becomes nothing short of petulant about them.**

**"Why don't you let her heal you? We leave tomorrow, and it would be best to have you in top shape. Not dragging around old wounds," I argue.**

**I expect a sigh or a glare from her with a smartass retort. Instead she shrugs and gracefully rises to her feet as if she were waking from a nap and not an intense training match. "Reds don't have Healers. In the Stilts, we barely have any medical care. I once broke my wrist and had to wait three days for a doctor to reset it after I bribed him with extra 'lec rations. So pain isn't anything new or scary to me."**

**It is in these unguarded moments, when Mare is just a girl from the Stilts with a quick hand and a sharp tongue, when I am just the boy captivated by her every word, when everything else surrounding us falls away and we can just be Mare and Cal. These are the moments worth waiting for her.**


	29. Chapter 29

"Well, try harder!" The stone smashes against the cave wall into a dozen chunks and a flume of powder. If this were anyone else yelling at me and throwing shit, I would have walked out with a long middle finger trailing behind me, but it's not just anyone. It's Shade, or dream-Shade, or future-Shade, or crazy-Mare-Shade. No matter the iteration, Shade gets a lifelong attitude pass, which I thoroughly regret giving him at 5 years old. Had I known he would turn into such an a-hole, I would've never pinkie swore with him almost 13 years ago.

I'm sat on the cliff's edge, where not five days ago, Emander Macanthos tried to throw me over. At first I found the Waterfall Room daunting, but the more time I've spent training with Shade here, the more I have come to appreciate its serenity. You could get lost in the constant white noise that never, ever ends. It is a loud roar, and often Shade and I have to holler "What?!" after every other misheard word, but the roar is steadfast and loyal, and something about that brings me peace.

"Mare, it's just important, it's so important that we get this, you have no idea. But you will." Shade takes a seat next to me, his shoulders slumping forward heavily and reminding me that he looks impossibly older and wearier today. Like 50 years have passed since I last saw him six hours ago.

I've asked Shade a dozen times what he's doing when he jumps somewhere outside of this timeline. He generally ignores the questions or tells me it isn't for me to know. Rules and all that. _But whose rules? And what could hurt in me just knowing?_

"I'm sorry, Shade. It's not you. I almost had it last time. I'm just tired, that's all." It's pushing three in the morning, and I've been working on this for the last three hours. Then there was a three-hour break before that and the two hours Shade and I spent training before that. In total, I've been awake since 5am, committed to three hours of meetings, fourteen hours of training, and 5 hours of "downtime", which mostly meant shoveling in food as quickly as I can to avoid speaking to anyone.

I've been trying to track down Julian for a private conversation for days, but he seems to be avoiding me. Not that he's been avoiding Cal at all, but I guess that is to be expected given they're family and all. It's silly to be jealous, but I am. Back when I was in Summerton and Archeon, I had Julian all to myself for training and counsel, and he was my most invaluable companion. I didn't have to share him, and he didn't have to pick anyone's side—he was with me all the way. Was he still a part of my cause? He must be if he's still here. Or maybe he is just here to watch over his only nephew.

Before I can stop myself, I blurt out what's suddenly burning my tongue. "Is Julian in our future? I mean, does he make it?"

Normally when I ask these types of questions, I get the same response from Shade. That's what I was expecting this time around, too, even though I desperately wanted to know. If Julian was in our future, things must be okay to an extent.

Shade stiffens and gives a single tight nod. "Oh he's there alright." He sounds peeved, which isn't totally unusual, but I thought for sure Shade and Julian would get along. They both love books more than most people, and Shade is the premier student of the Barrow family. They should be two peas in a pod.

"Shade? Care to explain?"

He's quiet for a moment, clearly looking through painful and angry memories in his head judging by his expression, but just when I think I've struck information gold, Shade stands up and shuts down. "Nope. Come on, I think we're done for the night. You're going to end up frying both our brains if I keep you going like this."

I let him help me up, making sure I stick out my bottom lip in a normally-irresistible pout. But Shade is impervious, or determined, and simply tousles my hair. "Get some sleep. Remember, you need to leave tonight."

"I know. You've only told me freakin' forty times today."

"So count that as forty-one. Seriously, Mare. As soon as dusk hits."

"I will, Shade."

"And…and take care of Diana, would ya?"

"Oh you mean between trying to, I don't know, SAVE THE KINGDOM?"

Shade laughs: a big crinkly-eyed laugh accompanied by the warmest and brightest grin I've ever seen on another human.

"I will, Shade. I'll do everything I can to keep her safe. And then some." I chew on my bottom lip then, a sure sign of my nerves, and I'm grateful that Shade is patient with me in these moments to let me sort through my fears so I can speak up on them. I'm sure he needs to go, but he waits patiently for me to speak like he always has.

"C'mon, Mare-bear. What has you worried?"

"You know that thing you said, about killing Maven and leaving Cal?" I wait for him to nod, which he does slowly and solemnly. "Haven't we changed enough? Doesn't all of this…", I gesture with a wave of my hand, "change everything? You already said…about Farley being here…I just thought maybe…" _I don't know what I'm scared of more: facing Maven head-on or losing Cal. I'd rather do neither, and have the future works itself out that Maven impales himself on his own sword and Cal whisks me away into a sunset wedding._

"I don't know, sis," Shade laments. "I don't think so. He said it's the bargain you'll have to make. For them, I think."

"Who said? Who makes these stupid rules of yours?"

Shade looks up then, hearing something I don't. "I need to go. I'll see you at The Choke."

"Wait—wait! You'll really be there? Why?"

"You're going to need all the help you can get, little sis. Besides, I never got a chance to piss on The Choke before Diana pulled me out of it. Wouldn't want to miss my chance now."

With that, a noise comes from the tunnel that leads to the base's entrance and the mouth of this strangely peaceful oasis. I turn around to spot who it is and immediately feel Shade's spot next to me turn cold. When I look back, Shade is gone.

Another noise comes from the tunnel, so I turn down my lantern and throw as big a rock I can pick up into the darkness. It hits something solid, muffled, followed by a familiar and whiny "Ow!"

"Kilorn, shit. What the hell are you doing up this late and in the tunnels?! Sneaking around could get you killed, you idiot."

Kilorn simply raises his brow at me before rolling his eyes and sitting beside me. "What are YOU doing up this late, and why are YOU in the tunnels?"

The lie comes easily. "Hiding from Cal." I choose this one because I know Kilorn won't ask. He still isn't Cal's biggest fan, and despite a budding relationship with Ada, I know there is a part of Kilorn that still lingers on me for more than friendship. It would never happen; I don't see Kilorn like that, and now I know without a doubt I never will. So if I have to take advantage of one of Kilorn's soft spots to keep away the interrogation, then I don't really have much qualms with it.

"Ah, trouble in paradise again? What's that make—the twentieth time today?"

A voice from far off, followed by a sharp shushing sound, interrupts our banter. "Shut up, Kilorn."

Kilorn, in all his oblivious nature, continues unperturbed. "I mean I don't blame you. The guy is about as jovial as a hangover on a 4AM boat ride on rough waters, you know what I mean? Hey, have you ever tried tickling the Princeling? I mean is he physically capable of moving his mouth out of a scowl or is that just—"

"Shut up… Kilorn, shut up!" I hiss at him. I hear the echoes of mumbles and footsteps in the distance, clearer this time, and I know without a doubt we are not alone in here. No way would it be Shade. He doesn't sneak around like that, and he wouldn't risk exposure. "Was anyone else awake when you came to find me?"

"No, the whole base is dead asleep," he answers with a faint air of anxiety.

Inwardly, I cringe at the word choice and recognize it as the feeling of foreboding. "Run. Don't make a sound. I'll be right behind you." When he doesn't move, I push him toward the tunnel and snuff out the lantern. "Kilorn, go. Go!"

Kilorn is quick on his feet, but he lacks almost all of the predatory silence and grace that my much quicker feet possess. I find myself slowing down to keep behind him, every stumble, every kick of a rock, almost a physical blow to my anxious, churning stomach. No one knows about these tunnels except those of us who went through there before, and I know no Red or Newblood would enter in here in the middle of the night. I don't know all the Silvers very well, so it could be them, but why sneak in here?

I have to touch all the walls around me to keep myself upright and ensure we're going in the right direction, so when the visions start flashing in rapid succession, I understand why—the impregnated Silent Stone—but I'm completely unprepared for them nonetheless. They play within seconds of one another, each one more intense than the last. Images of Tanner, his chubby cheeks and his bright big eyes. The top of Cal's head as it lays on my chest. Our coronation. The fight we had right before then. Maven in a cell, shaking the bars angrily—yelling like I've never seen him before. Tanner, as a baby, snuggled in my arms and again in his bassinet. Cal standing over him, singing a lullaby. Shade with Tanner as a young boy, with his hand on Tanner's shoulder, and there's something about the way his fingers curl around Tanner's shoulder that I immediately sense danger.

_"Shade? What's going on?"_

_"I'm sorry, Mare."_

_"Shade…what are...Tanner, come here."_

_I watch Tanner start to move toward me, unsure and hesitant, but Shade holds him back. Tanner's eyes grow wide as saucers with tears pooling near his lower lashes. But it's Shade's eyes I watch as they stare right into mine, reaching right into my depths and stirring the maternal instinct like a terrible beast._

_Lightning crackles on the ceiling, but no one sees it except Tanner. Always watching mommy's pretty show._

_"Don't do this, don't do this, please don't do this." I repeat it to Shade over and over, begging him to end this and walk away._

_"I'm sor—"_

_My scream pierces the air, but the running guards come too late. "NO! Come back! Shade! Tanner, come back! Bring him back!"_

"Mare, what the fu—go, go!" Kilorn has grabbed me by the shoulders, and I realize I've screamed aloud. I've alerted whoever joins us in these caves and surely given away my presence. Kilorn is dragging me with him, stumbling over every nook and cranny of the cave floor as the breath leaves my lungs and my head swims. I can't focus on anything, not the memory of Shade taking my son, not the running footsteps of the intruders following after us. I can only think about the burning in my legs as I run so fast that I begin to drag Kilorn along.

"Listen to me," I murmur against Kilorn's shoulder as we near the entrance. "You find Cal first, then Layli. Get Layli to conceal the entrance of the base. I'm going to hold off whoever these people are."

Kilorn shakes his head furiously. "I'm not leaving you behind!"

"Kilorn, I know these caves, maybe better than whoever is down here. I can lead them away, get them lost in here until I figure out who they are, and then I'll be back."

"Stupid. This is a stupid plan, Mare."

I know it is, but I can't think of any other way to protect all the lives in that base. "Count the Silvers there. Make sure everyone is accounted for."

"You think it's one of them?" he asks breathlessly. Almost there. Another fifteen feet and we'll be at the door.

Do I? Do we know any of them well enough to know their intentions? We certainly didn't know Emander. "I don't know, but let's not take any chances."

The footsteps of those following us get closer, and in between the blood pumping through my ears loudly, I hear a screech of a voice that stops me dead in my tracks. "You've got it from here. Go. Kilorn, go!" I shove him the last few feet and wait 'til I hear the door shut behind him. I hope he has enough good sense to run like hell to Cal.

I don't know how long it will take for Kilorn to set my plan in motion, but I can't risk anyone stumbling upon this door. Even if it turns out to be someone from the inside, without knowing why they are sneaking around down here, I wouldn't want them back in the compound anyway. I could lead them to the waterfall, where the presence of Silent Stone has too little an impact on our abilities. It's a risk, because it grants whoever is down here access to their abilities too, but I know without my electricity, I don't stand much of a chance against two Silvers, maybe more. I really need to get into hand-to-hand combat training with Cal, I lament a little too late.

I take off running back to the waterfall, purposely making as much noise as I can, which proves to be a challenge against my carefully-mastered light feet. I hear my name called in the closing distance; they know it's me down here. Did they hear Kilorn, too?

When I arrive to the spectacular moonlit waterfall cavern, I realize I've trapped myself into a corner. I could head into one of the opposite tunnels, but at what cost? How much Silent Stone are in those, I wonder. The heels of my feet scrape the cliff's edge, and I frantically look around for anything, any sign, any miracle. Will Shade come? Will Cal fight through Kilorn and make it in time? _Don't make it easy for them, Mare._ _Fight._ They won't be reasoned with, I know that much. The panic starts to build in my chest, and I desperately wish Cal were here. He is as quick with a plan as I am on my feet. He would know a way out of this, or at least I wouldn't be alone when they flay me alive.

"Fuck!" I shout to the walls. With a grunt, I take off for the largest of the adjoining tunnels spilling out into this room. This one should lead into the clearing we spent the night in, and from there I can move into the tunnel back to the Notch. If it's just them, if it's only them, then I may be able to get out of this. I can outrun them easily—I've proven that before. I decide to conserve my ability to a tiny spark meant to illuminate the way; though I can create much more, it tires me quicker, and I don't know how long I will need to run. I know my body is worn thin with exhaustion. It's pushing 4 in the morning meaning I've been awake for 23 hours now. Adrenaline keeps me going, but it won't sustain lightning and my feet together. Deep in my thoughts, I've lost track of the sounds around me until I suddenly realize I am surrounded by silence. Did they stop following? Did they get lost? Maybe the Silent Stone acted as a shield they instinctively avoided. I don't dare slow down, but I listen carefully for a few more paces realizing there is no one following me any longer.

As I pull into the clearing, my hands go straight for my knees while I double over and resist the urge to vomit. My eyes and nose water, but a few deep breaths and I scan the clearing—no sign of anyone. Where now?

_They could be hiding in any one of these tunnels waiting for me, but how would they know which one? Or maybe they're looking for me to go back to the first tunnel, the one that would lead them straight to the base. Do they really think I'm that stupid?_

"Hey, assholes! Come on out! I'm not going anywhere and you are hiding like limp dicks in Silent Stone tunnels anyway!"

Why yes, yes I am stupid.

His voice is the first I hear as he uncharacteristically stalks out of the tunnel that leads to the base. "Do you kiss your brother with that mouth, Mareena? Oh wait," he chuckles. He doesn't move any further in, which is curious because I know for a fact the Silent Stone still lingers heavily where he's standing. I'm cautious, but I don't flinch.

"Didn't you get the memo, Ptolemus? It's Mare. Where's your worse half?"

"Oh she'll be along. Where's your traitor boyfriend?"

I shrug. Act cool, act casual. Meanwhile, I can feel the beads of sweat at the nape of my neck begin to travel down my back. "Afraid he isn't here. I'm sure he sends his regards. I'll let him know you miss him."

I watch Ptolemus's hands go behind his back, but it looks like a posture stance more than anything. Seriously, where is Evangeline? She wouldn't miss an opportunity to wave her bitch flag in my face.

"Sorry you came all this way down here for nothing. I'm surprised you two morons even managed to find this place."

"Thankfully you led us right to it. When your tracker went off, you led us to you, and you can thank Evangeline for figuring out the tunnels beneath your little hiding hole. And you're going to lead us to the rest of them, and then you know what we're going to do next, Barrow?"

He takes two steps forward and I instinctively light a ball in my hand, ready to lob it at his face any moment. He's too calm for a man that's been bested by me before. His voice drops into a menacing whisper. "Then we're going to take them one by one and hang them on the bridge at Archeon. All except for Cal and that blonde bitch. King Maven has asked to personally see to it that their deaths be made an example to the others. You'll watch as all those precious Newbloods and Reds you saved swing off the bridge and dangle there to rot for days. And the King has given you front row seats to watch as he burns that filthy Red alive in her skin. And for the traitor prince, we are going to rip his limbs off one...by…one—"

I throw the growing crackling ball at his head but the aim is off by the sudden tears stinging my eyes. "Over my dead body!" I screech at him.

It's the last thing I say before the world slows down and I watch as Ptolemus's smile lifts into the most vicious smirk. It's then that I feel her approach me quickly from behind, but I don't get the chance to turn around before a sharp pain stabs my back. Her hands twists in my hair to yank back, saving me from the sight of blood wetting my shirt.

"Fine by me," Evangeline breathes into my ear. Her voice is sharp, like a harp string plucked maddeningly, like the school bell screaming to mark my tardiness, like the bees that fly too close to my ear on a summer day in the grass, like the…


	30. Chapter 30

"Back off! I SAID BACK OFF!"

"You have no idea what you're doing! You aren't supposed to be here! ….the implications…you have no idea! The rules—"

"FUCK THE RULES, SHADE! This is _HER!_ We can't leave her!"

The bellows echo back and forth, and I can't seem to make out who the voices belong to, but I also can't think straight. Searing through my abdomen is a blinding pain that consumes me from the inside out. _I'm going to die. I'm going to die._ It's all I can think about, but rather than the peace of this moment that I've experienced in the Bowl of Bones and the Queenstrial arenas, I am in a chaos of internal panic. What will Ptolemus and Evangeline do to everyone at the base? Who will they kill for sport? Cal would never go willingly—not with Maven on the throne to humiliate him further in front of the Kingdom. I wonder if Cal will find me before he burns the place down. Will he take my body with him if he runs? Would he stay with me? Would he save Kilorn?

 _He has to get Kilorn out_.

"What? What did she say?"

The defiant, angrier voice of the two moves closer to me, and I want to open my eyes to see him, to gaze at the man who wants so badly to make this better that it breaks my heart to know he never will. "Who cares?! Are you going to help me or not?"

There's more silence, or maybe I've finally bit the bullet. I feel my heavy eyelids flutter so delicately it tickles. The absurdity of feeling a tickle when my entire body is shutting down is not lost on me, even as my head goes fuzzy and the mystery voices turn into strange noises. I want memories. I want flashes of my life and all the faces of the people I love before I disappear. Isn't that what you're supposed to get before you die? Where is my white light? Where is my serenity? I deserve that. I've _earned_ peace, dammit. I'm going to die alone, with two strangers arguing the inevitable over me. My fingers twitch and desperately seek the warmth of someone's hand holding mine. I hope they notice before it's too late. I hope the voices aren't just in my head. Tears slip out of the out corners of my eyes to leave hot streaks to soothe my aching temples. They chill when they reach my hair and trickle into my ears, and I mentally follow their cold trails. I don't feel the gash in my back from Evangeline's blade. I don't feel the pumping of blood out of the hole it has left. I don't feel my abdominal muscles contracting painfully, fighting vainly to close a wound too deep. I don't feel my legs cramping with the tension I've stretched them in. Just hot tears cooling off in matters of seconds, milliseconds even. Time gets impossibly slower until it stops altogether.

* * *

"Wait, I know this." I stand with the Silent Stone between my hands, ignoring the dull ache in my head and the sharp twinge in my back. I look around the waterfall atrium in the underground tunnels Shade and I practice in in secret. It's then I notice Shade sitting across from me with his head between his legs and blood dripping from his face. I run to him and lift his head to find his nose bleeding relentlessly. I pull my red scarf from the Guard, something I always keep on me, and press it to his nose, all while barraging him with questions. He was just fine! Shade gently pushes me back and waves me away.

"Know what?" His voice is hoarse and comes between what sounds like wet coughs. I'm seriously concerned at this sudden turnaround, but after a moment he seems to shake it off and repeats his question.

I look around for anything that looks familiar, but it's all familiar. So what is it I'm searching for? "I feel like I've been here before."

"Well yeah, Mare, we've been here almost every night for three straight days."

I shake my head. That isn't it. It's almost as though I should know what's coming next. "I'm going to get frustrated with you—"

"You're always frustrated with me."

"—and you're going to tell me to take a deep breath and try again. I'll make a couple sparks, but…and then you leave, and there's a noise."

Shade rolls his eyes and sighs with exaggerated exasperation. "If you don't want to practice, just say so. I'm beat anyway." The nonchalance has a slight quiver to it, which just solidifies this whole strange feeling.

With a shuddering gasp I look down at my stomach to find my shirt dirty from a day's worth of sweat and dust. Whatever I was expecting to find is no longer there, but it's like an itch my brain cannot scratch. Something is off. I'm not supposed to be here.

"I don't feel well either." I take a seat one on of the rocks the juts into a makeshift bench against the wall nearest the spray from the waterfall. I'm getting soaked but I don't really notice it because the itch in my brain? It's now consuming my body in a tingle I can't ignore. "What's happening to me? I was here, but then I wasn't, and now I am again. And you look really, really worse for wear, Shade. I feel like we're missing something big."

"You're tired, Mare. I'm tired. Besides, you need to head back before someone comes looking for you."

"Kilorn, probably." I say it almost an afterthought. That jolts my head up as another vague flickering memory ghosts into my head, but just as suddenly it's gone. I repeat myself, hoping for the same reaction, but nothing comes.

"Yeah, sis, you're beat. Come on, you need to get back to base and catch some shut eye. I have something to take care of anyway."

I look at him curiously, but of course he says nothing. He never does. He sets me off into the tunnel back to the base and promises to see me soon.

"At the Choke, right?" Again, the itch consumes my body like a tidal wave. _Wait, how did I know that?_

Shade gives me a wary look, one that makes me think I should be seriously concerned for my mental health, before nudging me toward the tunnel. "Mare, of course I'd see you at the Choke. I wouldn't miss the big day." I feel like there's an unfinished joke there that Shade isn't telling, and boy, do I really desperately need sleep.

Shade gets to his feet rather unsteadily, as do I. With another glance toward him and his bloody nose, I leave Shade and stumble through the tunnel, dead weight dragging along lead feet. I can feel the Silent Stone surrounding me and a niggling becomes an urge to find something I'm supposed to remember in here. Suddenly, I'm skimming my fingers over every stone within reach, waiting for a memory flash. I can't help but feel there should be something here. Nothing. _This is crazy._ "I am going crazy."

"Yeah you are. It's 4 in the morning. Why are you awake and why are you out here?"

Kilorn's voice shocks the hell out of me, and in turn, I nearly shock the hell out of him. The Silent Stone prevents anything from coming to the surface, though I still feel the sizzling beneath my skin. I knew it! I knew he was coming to find me. How did I freaking know that? I groan partly in frustration and party annoyed at Kilorn's presence. "Kilorn, spare me the interrogation for the night, I'm begging you. I'm so tired and feel like I've been to hell and back."

"You know, Mare, you could always sleep on the couch if you wanted to get away from Cal. You don't need to hide all the way in here," he chuckles. He motions to pat me on the back, but as soon as his hand touches my shoulder, he withdraws quickly. "Woah, did you shower in here, too? Why are you wet?"

Instead of answering, I skirt around him and head back for the base. At this point, I'm ready to strip naked and climb into bed next to Cal just to get warm again, but I wouldn't mind heating up in other ways, too.

Because Kilorn has no sense of when to stop, he keeps teasing. "Are you going to become one of those weirdos who lives underground? You've already got the gross smell down. Seriously, Mare, if you're trying to punish Cal, skip the shower before you get into bed." I use the last of my strength to shove him playfully into the wall, to which he responds in kind. It's nothing forceful by any means, but I'm surprised when I push back from the wall and feel a trickle down my nose. My hands cannot wipe frantically enough at the warm trail of blood before Kilorn turns around; fortunately, he doesn't and continues to stroll ahead, whistling even, which unnerves me for some unknown reason.

"Shh! Kilorn, keep it down." It's a paranoid hiss, and one that he ignores.

"Mare there's no one in here. You're the only freak who chooses to hang out in some dark musty caves in the middle of the night, and I'm the heroic and brave best friend who walks around the entire base before figuring you're here. Though truth be told, this place gives me the creeps, and if you weren't where I thought you'd be, I'd have definitely pissed myself getting back to the Web. That's the kids' new cool nickname for the base by the way. It's the Web, because it reminds them of a spider's web I guess, so if you want to fit in with the cool kids—not that you ever have—you gotta learn their lingo."

I laugh heartily at his expense, but I feel more comfortable in the tunnels now that I've spent so much time in here with Shade. I also feel like I've been here before, in a weird otherworldly way, and from what Shade has told me about the memory stones, I don't think it's too far off to say that I have, or will, spend more time down here in the future.

We're nearing the Web's entrance, and I couldn't be more grateful that my room with Cal is right off the hall from this door. Technically I'm supposed to meet with Farley in less than two hours, but we leave tonight, and if I don't at least get some sleep, I'm going to be even crankier and temperamental than usual. Maybe I'll skip the meetings and get Cal's notes after. Or if we're still not talking, I can get them from Ada since she remembers everything anyway.

"Hey, do you think Farley would—" My own scream cuts me off but its sound is drowned by a second massive boom immediately following. Around us, the tunnels shake and rocks start falling from dangerous heights. I yank Kilorn away from one and barely sidestep another in time. In the near distance, I can hear the piling of rocks and I wonder if all the tunnels are going to collapse in on us and crush us. The thought aches me. I have memories in here that I've been wanting to explore, and the fear that I could lose them all keeps my feet stuck to the ground. It's Kilorn who shouts for me to move, and pulls my arm forward to close the rest of the distance until we're safely ensconced in the fortunately unharmed base. With the heavily reinforced door and thick military-grade walls and ceiling, you can just barely hear the last of the rocks falling from whatever just happened. I would bet no one in here even so much as stirred in their sleep at the sound of the explosion happening just a few miles from them.

"What was that?!" Kilorn whispers to me in the dark hallway. I shake my head, at a loss for words, but he can't see me.

"I don't know. An explosion? Or, maybe a natural coincidence? I mean we're underground. Who's to say that doesn't happen regularly?"

"I don't think so. The tunnels wouldn't still be intact if _that_ happened regularly. That sounded like a bomb detonating."

"What, so you think someone caused that? Kilorn, no one knows these tunnels exist except us. And even then, it's impossible to navigate them without any guide. We wouldn't have found the base entrance if it wasn't for Farley, and the tunnels are filled with Silent Stone. No Silver would willfully walk through them, and they'd be powerless if they did. We're fine." I say it more to convince myself, but I will myself to believe it all the same. Kilorn seems satisfied because after a soft nudge to my shoulder, he tells me to get some sleep, but not before another jab at needing a shower.

When I quietly turn the door handle to our room, Cal is slack-jawed and asleep with his notebook face down on his chest and his glasses sitting oddly low on his nose. I want to take them from him and tuck him in properly, but that would be affectionate and I'm not feeling rather affectionate toward him. The sting of my defeat during our training today has long since dissipated, but in its void sits embarrassment. I hate losing to him because I hate conceding power to the cocky prince who cares too much for his own good and not enough to make a world-changing difference.


	31. Chapter 31

**The sounds of the shower lull me in and out of sleep while I listen for the breaks in the water where Mare must be moving around. The steady stream, the quick taps of the water on the tile floor, will rain in succession for 10 or 15 minutes, then just as sleep takes me, the water breaks and becomes louder and disjointed. I wonder if she's washing her hair, or if she's stepping out of the stream when the water gets too hot. Lucky for her, she's taking her shower in the dead of night, so neither of us need worry about a sudden cold turn when all the hot water's gone. That always results in a sudden yelp from her, followed by her scrambling around for her towels. She always leaves them on the opposite side of the bathroom and also trails puddles of water on the floor from where she walks right out of the shower to get them. I don't know whether it's annoying or endearing, but I suppose it depends on the kind of day we're having.**

**The shower goes back to a steady stream and this time I wait to see how long before she moves again. She has to be finishing up soon. Mare cites showers as her luxury, once explaining that water is heavily regulated and rationed in the Stilts.**

**"5 minutes max for each of us, each day. Most of the time it was cold water, but some of the wealthier Reds had a few minutes of hot water a day. One by one when my brothers left, I thought we'd get to increase our time. Between the three of them, that was 15 extra minutes. But Governor Welle declared it a waste of resources. I bet he was never short of hot water," she had finished with contempt. There's nothing I could say at the time, no offering I could give that would seem genuine or empathetic. I grew up in a different lifestyle, one that I feel like she expects me to apologize for each time she tells me about an injustice she faced as a little Red girl from the Stilts. I must have known all my life they had it worse than us, of course I'd known, but I never took in all the misery of it. I would watch Reds stumble out of taverns and small shops, gossiping about their townfolk and grumbling about their work, but rarely heard complaints on their states of living. Now, I understand why. When you all live in the same hole, there's no comfort in complaining about the hold together.**

**So it's one of the reasons I never rush her or scold her for running late because of her long showers. It seems to genuinely cleanse her of her bad moods and stress, and she always walks out a little brighter. I love that about her; that she never takes the little things for granted. Not food, not a bed—not even pillows and blankets. She's grateful and enchanted by it all.**

**When my thoughts start to quiet, I realize I haven't heard any stirring from Mare for about 20 minutes. We leave tonight, and she can't leave on no sleep. Who knows when we'll be able to stop later, or if we'll be able to stop at all. I pull myself from the bed, body aching from the stiff position I've lain in, and gently knock on the bathroom door as to not startle her. A few more knocks and I open the door to find her sitting on the shower floor, head between her knees, quietly sobbing. I can tell by the tremble of her shoulders and the slight rock her body does in her curled position. Bruises mar her skin, a sallow mix of yellows and blacks, with stripes of red from gashes she's sustained recently. She could have Sara heal these instantly, but unlike the pride that keeps me from seeking out Sara Skonos for my wounds, Mare has been used to cuts and bruises all her life. _It's survival_.**

**I do feel like I'm invading her privacy, but I cannot look away or leave her here. What to say to her, what to do now, I don't know. If I go to her, I may frighten her. If I push her to talk to me, she may shut down completely. Like a dying fish, my mouth gapes and closes with unspoken jumbles of concern and curiosity. But Mare is observant and she knows I'm here before I can figure out how to make myself known.**

**"Could you grab a towel, please?"**

**She sounds hoarse, like she's been crying for some time, and I curse myself for not coming in sooner. I have to smile when she stands and turns her back to me while her arms cover her chest. I have watched her in throes of passion, have felt her body beneath mine, have committed to memory all her exquisite curves, and yet she turns from me to protect her modesty. Though I suspect it's to hide her vulnerability from me more than anything.**

**Her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, a testament to her in-shower breakdown, but I couldn't find her any more beautiful with her wet hair dripping from its greyed ends, her eyelashes dark and full, heavy atop her deep brown, amber-flecked irises. She just does it for me. She's infuriating, she's selfish, and she can even sometimes be cruel, but no matter how much I try to deny myself of her, I will never be able to follow through. I will always want her. She's the spark to my flame, and even if we burn each other out, I will wait for her to bring us back to life again.**

**In bed, she tucks her body against mine and pulls my hand across her stomach. My other arm rests under her head, and she entwines our fingers and brings them to her chest, laying my palm flat against her heart.**

**"Happy birthday, Cal," she mumbles sweetly to me. I pull her impossibly closer to me, and when I close my eyes, for once, I don't dream of the tragedy surrounding us. I see my father smiling kindly at me, proud of the son I have become. And my mother is by his side with eyes brimming with joy and wonder. And sweet Mare holds me to her, the pink of her blush bright on her cheeks and effervescent humanity glowing on her skin. And Maven, my tenderhearted soft-spoken little brother, my best friend, he's there too, with a huge playful grin and warm, loving eyes having never known the taste of bitterness and the sting of hate.**

**It's an impossible birthday present, but then Mare flips over to nuzzle against my chest in her sleep. It's the first time she's slept like this, with her head directly above my heart and her arm circling my waist. The intimacy of this moment, the ease at which she recalled my birthday like old lovers submerges the sadness in me. I fall asleep to the sound of her loud hums of breath and a whispered "I love you" on my lips.**


	32. Chapter 32

"Mare." A nudge to my shoulder jostles me, but I'm too tired to open my eyes. I couldn't even if I wanted to with my face shoved so far into Cal's pillow I might suffocate. His scent, pine and amber, is an intoxicating blend of woodsy and royal. I inhale it over and over in steady deep breaths until I am dozing back to sleep.

"Mare, come on." Another shove and this time around it isn't quite as gentle. I half-yell, half-mumble a curse into Cal's pillow and blindly kick out. Maybe I'll land a blow right to his groin so he'll leave me alone. I couldn't have slept more than 4 hours by the time I fell asleep, but I know the nightmare I had within my first hour of sleep stole another 30 minutes after that. I didn't dare tell Cal about the visceral feeling of Evangeline Samos stabbing me again and again, every slice into my abdomen burning me from the inside out. It felt so real that I was clawing at my back and stomach right before my piercing scream broke through the still morning. Cal was worried, of course, then put out because I wouldn't talk to him about one of the many fictions I create in my disturbed slumber. But how do I tell him about the darkness I live with? How do I wrestle demons that I know he fights, too?

Besides, this didn't feel so much a dream as a premonition of sorts. It could be my fear talking, I've reasoned that much. Who knows what awaits us outside of these walls? It's a two-day stretch to The Choke, and once we get there, all that awaits us is a guaranteed bloodshed battle. I'm not naïve enough to think we can safely evacuate all of the Reds off the battlefield, nor am I unprepared to see Maven, Evangeline, and now Ptolemus. I know they'll be there, and I know they are expecting us, too. We can't avoid them, which means we must fight them. It will be a bloodier battle than any of us have seen before, with no one spared if either side can help it. Will Maven fight, though? I half-expect him to stand back and watch disaster unfold with his arrogant bastard of a smirk. He won't sully his hands with Red blood that isn't mine. And I'm still not entirely convinced he will kill me. No, Maven thinks this a game, and his final move is going to be one with flourish. Mine will not be a messy death on the wasteland of Norta, that I know.

But if I'm honest, it isn't me I'm really worried about. As long as I have Cal and Kilorn, and hopefully Shade, and the powerhouse that is Farley, I know that I will be protected. No Silver will have the opportunity to kill me with my own personal army by my side. This means they will have to kill them first, one by one picking them off in front of my eyes. It will destroy me before any Silver can.

"Are you still recovering from your nightmare?" Cal asks it with a quietness I can't quite place until it dawns on me that he's nervous. He wants to know, and badly.

I shrug it off and roll over to indicate I'm awake but I refuse to open my eyes with him inspecting me for any sign, any trace that what happened last night is still lingering with me now.

"You can tell me, you know. Anything you need to talk about, we can talk about it here." There is an urgency to his tone that doesn't sound like the brusque Cal I'm accustomed to, so I ignore him completely.

"Did they eat all of breakfast, or are there still some scraps I can scrounge up before we need to leave? Better yet, when are we leaving?"

His answer comes with a sigh, so I ignore that too. Cal informs me that everything is packed, including my stuff that he packed for me this morning. I look around the room and realize that it is barren save for candles and a few scrap sheets of paper. It's not like we had much to begin with, but every photo, every personal effect has been packed away. Cal's hand reaches around to rub the back of his neck as he follows my eye line. He packed everything because he doesn't think we will be coming back. The thought is sobering.

"K, well no point in hanging around. You mentioned wanting to train a little more?"

"Hand-to-hand combat. You need to improve this skill and not become so reliant on your ability. Arven House, Silent Stone, Maven's machinery are all possible weapons against you. You may be quick, but your combat skills are weak. Come on, get dressed and eat quickly, then meet me in the training room in 15. We don't have time to waste." The clicks of his boots as he walks away are almost as sharp as the sudden change in his demeanor, but honestly, it's better this way. I need him cold and distant like a soldier. Soldiers get the job done. Soldiers focus on the mission. Soldiers don't have time for complex romantic interests.

(...)

"Guard! Your! Left!" Each word he shouts is accentuated by another strike: one to my ribs, another to my knee, and the final one stopping just before my nose as he pins me to the floor. My breath is hot and humid on his fist as I pant in shallow puffs until the air returns to my lungs. This excuse for a mat beneath me actually makes it more painful to lie here than getting my ass kicked. We've been at this for two hours, and there is no part of me that Cal hasn't easily bested. He's right: I'm faster and smaller, but on this small circumference of training space he's allotted me, I have no choice but to face him head-on and it is painfully obvious that he is a superior fighter. _All Silvers are trained like this_. Evangeline and Ptolemus included. Even Maven.

"I could run."

"You could, but what if free space is limited?"

"Then I blast everyone out of my way."

"And Pius Arven stands not 3 feet away, rendering you silent. Now what?"

The blackness swirls. "I-I don't know, I'd figure something out!"

Cal doesn't relent. This exercise is just as important as the hours we have spent sparring. "Ptolemus fashions throwing knives out of the blown soldiers' armor. Evangeline turns the battleground into a minefield of shrapnel you have to maneuver around. A Marinos screams, forcing you to your knees. You can't hear anything." _Air. I need air._ "Your vision turns pink from the blood vessels bursting. A circle of fire surrounds you, cutting you off from everyone and everything. Cutting you off from me. Maven breaks through the circle. Evangeline flanking his side. What do you do, Mare? You have no time! You have no power! No one is coming. What do you do? Tell me! What do you do?!"

It engulfs me, burying me alive in darkness that pushes me to the ground in panic. I will die. If I have nowhere to run, if my lightning fails me, I will die. No, worse. I will be Maven's for the taking.

"GET UP!" Cal shouts at me but I cannot move. I'm frozen by fear, even though I shouldn't be. I have been through this. I have survived moments just like this. I've seen the horrors. I've _been_ those horrors. I'm the little lightning girl, but I'm also Mare Barrow. I have watched my brother die in front of me; I have been flanked by Silvers and thwarted jets of water and flying metal poles; I have fought through Maven's clicking machine, forcing me to electrocute myself endlessly. I have faced terrors, and I have struck back every time. In a moment of clarity, my body overcomes my frazzled mind and swings my electrified leg out to sweep Cal's feet from underneath him. His back slams against the mat, and I waste no time vaulting over him and pointing a triple-checked empty loaded gun at his head. My entire body is engulfed in sparks; he cannot touch with without further hurting himself.

"Click," I whisper with the pistol barely shaking in my hand. "Click, click, click." My chest heaves in the rush of adrenaline; this is how I'll survive at The Choke.

"Better," he huffs. "Not great, but better."

My expression must look smug because Cal is quick to wipe it off. "If you let them get that close to you to begin with, you won't last long enough to put your finger on the trigger."

"I won't, but Cal, we're there on a mission to save the Red children. Get all of them safely aboard the jet. Not as many as we can. Not most of them. _All_ of them. I will not leave a single one behind, you have to know that. You can't worry about me, and I can't worry about you."

He nods stiffly, and it's the only response I'll get from him on this subject. He doesn't want to face the idea of choosing Reds over me, and I don't want to dig deep enough to know if he'll choose the Silvers. I watch him continue his personal training in silence while I slowly unwrap my hands of the thin white cloths he had gently enrobed them in prior to our session. I ache for the soft brushes of his fingertips along my knuckles; the way his fingers massaged mine, and how the pad of his thumb rubbed small circles in my palm. The normalcy of it fulfilled a craving I have carried with me all these months. And the gentleness, god the gentle way he caressed my hands without meaning to is a stark contrast to the brutality I know he has stirring in him. The punching bags simper underneath each of his blows, and the sound echoes around me until it transforms into a second heartbeat in my ears. He moves quickly with such control and strength. I'll admit my finesse makes me lither and therefore more unpredictable, but his strength is just as intimidating as his fire. A few Newbloods come around to watch and learn, so I take that as my cue to quietly slip out and search for the single most important person I have been eager to speak with since we arrived to the new base.

I find Julian in the library of course, going through history books and collections of maps. If he is aware of my presence, he does not acknowledge it. He doesn't look up and he never pauses from the scanning of several pages because if I know one thing about Julian, I know this look: he is on to something. I have to get his attention when my patience wears after several minutes, but he raises his pointer finger and keeps me waiting another few minutes.

When he looks up, there is no mistaking the frenzied joy in his clear irises. I really enjoy Julian when he is like this. His mood is contagious and one I have sorely missed. I find myself asking him a half dozen questions rapid firefrom the start: _What did you find? What are these maps? Is that the Choke? What's that you've scrawled just there?_

I hover over his mess of papers trying to absorb and make sense of it all until Julian takes me by the shoulders and grins ear-to-ear. Like a dumbstruck idiot, I find myself grinning, too. I don't even know why. I am just so damn happy to see him happy.

"Mare, I believe I have just learned how we're going to get all of the Red children out. These underground tunnels your Guard has discovered..they extend all over the cities. Norta was, quite literally, built on top of the ruins of the Old World. There are systems everywhere, connecting all the way to Naercy, even. We just need to find an opening into the tunnels near the site, and then we bring them underground. At worst, we hold them underground until the area clears of Silvers. At best, well, Mare, who knows? According to the map overlays, there could be several bases just like this one. They could establish settlements down there for quite some time, and theoretically, the Guard could use the tunnels to transport supplies, even people. There are large automobiles that once ran the grounds and undergrounds. They called them trains."

I think back to the screeching metal box that Farley rescued Cal and me in after the Bowl of Bones. "I know those. We've- Cal and me- we've been in one of those transports. The Guard was able to get them running."

Julian's eyes go as wide as saucers, so I tell him everything I can remember about them. From their size to their smell, he is interested in it all. He loses me at the mechanics, but Cal is an easy redirect. I'm actually giddy to be talking to him like I did as a student of his. Julian has so much to teach, and I find myself longing for learning everything I can from him. The turnaround in my academic interest makes me chuckle. My teachers back home in Stilts would spit if they didn't drop dead of surprise.

But the conversation slowly approaches a lull as we formulate a plan to present to Farley and Cal, and I'm left to ask what I came in here for in the first place.

"Julian, what do you know about time travel?"

His head tilts; if he knows something, he isn't letting on. His quirks may be imperceptible, but I'm no fool. Julian has answers to questions the world hasn't thought to ask yet. He knows something about this, I'm sure of it. After surveying me for another moment, he shakes his head and return to his books. "It not possible."

 _Liar_. "Okay, but what if it is?"

With a sigh, he flops down into a beat-up leather armchair that has definitely seen better days. "Mare, it just…it is not possible. Abilities that even came close to time manipulation were destroyed a thousand years ago, and those just barely scratched the surface. This world has never known time travel."

"What do you mean those abilities were destroyed?"

"I mean just that." He scratches his chin thoughtfully, but I am in no hurry to return to Cal nor take off for The Choke, so I stay in our quiet and undisturbed bubble while Julian explains a brief history of Silver evolution.

"When the bloodlines began to evolve from the gods, certain abilities proved too powerful. Whispers can get in your head when they are near you; Singers must look in your eyes. But there was a time when our ancestors could think of a person and crawl inside their head from afar. You need only know their face, a mental picture which you could conjure in your mind's eyes, and you could bring the victim debilitating pain, or worse-control them. There were weather manipulators, similar to the Titanos family you were fabricated into. They could flood the world with rain, and for a time they brought the harshest winters to their enemies. Those bloodlines were slowly picked off one-by-one to ensure a semblance of power balance amongst Silvers. But there were also the Supremes, whose abilities were so infinitely great that the Silvers started wars over them. This is how we came to the divisions of our world as we know them today.

One could kill any living creature with a single look, and I don't mean like the little Newblood boy who could slowly drain the life out of a subject. It was instantaneous death from his eyes, and no one was safe. Another could turn the dead into the living, endlessly perpetuating the lives of any blood by giving them back years, or even entire existences. Imagine that-he could pluck from the dead an return them to childhood to begin life anew. The final Supreme could manipulate time: forwards, backwards, frozen. She could erase centuries from the universe. She could wipe out the development of nations, of _people_. But, she did none of that. In fact, none of the Supremes ever abused their power. They rarely every used them to begin with, and when the other Silvers began exploiting these gifts, the Supremes stopped using their abilities altogether."

I'm incredulous beyond words. "W-Why? They could rule the world. Any one of them could have been King of Norta—the whole world actually!"

"Ah, but that is exactly why they never used their abilities. They understood what many Silvers today fail to recognize. These abilities that distinguish our kind from yours, the same abilities that distinguish you from your mother and father, they are not mean to rule, Mare. They are not meant to gain and extort power. The Supremes knew that more than anyone, for they possessed enormous power without ever showing it. To use their abilities for personal gain would obliterate us all.

See, Mare, every action carries weight, and that weight doesn't just dissipate once the act is completed. It transfers from one person or generation to the next. Everything Tiberius Calore did to be King carried a heavy burden that fell unto Cal. Cal, the firstborn. Cal, the heir apparent. You can see how heavily that weighs on him to this day. And so the same for Elara and Maven. And so will be the same for you, little lightning girl. One spark started a war, whether you intended it or not. That is the weight you must carry."

As always with Julian, coming to him opens more doors than it closes. How do you know what is the right decision for tomorrow? How do you carry someone else's weight when you can barely carry your own? The intensity of the conversation pulls at my eyelids, an ache that pulses throughout my brows and across to my temples. It's one of the byproducts of this Newblood life; I feel everything inside me so much more acutely than before. I still feel that sharp twinge in my back that started last night.

"As for time travel, Mare, I've seen some pretty remarkable things coming to life with the emerging of Newbloods, but there are some abilities that simply cannot form on this world."

This time when Julian's head sinks back into his books, I don't disrupt him with lingering conversation. So there was someone who could manipulate time, but if Julian is right, this was an extraordinary exception. And yet Shade can jump through time. I don't think our annihilation is simply Maven's way of getting back at me, nor do I think this is an issue of blood at all. New bloods pose power threats, and Silvers have a history of exploiting or eliminating those power threats. We can defeat Maven and the Samos siblings on the battlefield, but it is egregious to think we could take on an entire race rallying against us.

"Julian? What happened to them? The Supremes? Did they die?"

I watch his expression change to one of immediate surprise, as though the answer was obvious as the wrinkles on his lifted face. "Well, no, you can't destroy Life, Death, and Time, Mare. They banished themselves from this world. They returned to the heavens to carry out that vow."


	33. Chapter 33

Farley says we will leave at dusk, meaning I still have a few hours to kill before we make the long trek through the forests to the hidden airjet. Rain is expected tonight, and while miserable for travelling in, it'll make our cover that much better. Cal and Julian are in the library with Farley, endlessly nitpicking every detail over and over to a mind-numbing repetition. The Newbloods are resting up per Kilorn's orders, and Kilorn…well after an hour of familiar bantering to remind us of old times, I left him to spend the last of the quiet, peaceful afternoon with Ada.

Heading back to the bedroom Cal and I shared is just depressing in its emptiness. It isn't that this place ever felt like home, but the absence of all of our belongings is so resolute, so foreboding. I feel like it's a goodbye, even if I do survive the Choke, and I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because I never attached myself to this place, or maybe it's because I worry I'll be coming back alone. Hot tears sting the brims of my eyes, but it's the ball of emotion lodged in my throat that stops me in the doorway. With enormous effort, I swallow it down and blink furiously until my vision is clear again.

I'm left to walk aimlessly through the halls while those that are staying behind all dip their heads respectfully as I pass. Whether it's to avoid looking me in the eyes or as a show of gratitude for what we're about to do, I don't know, but I appreciate the silence nonetheless. Most of the base is staying here; in fact, the total group going is fairly slimmer numbers than we planned, but it was at the last moment we weeded out those who were simply not ready for battle. No sense in babysitting Newbloods with their hearts in the right place if they couldn't point their guns in the right place either.

In a room down one of the many nameless halls sits rows upon rows of plush seats in front of a massive white screen. It looks like a weird classroom with all the chairs facing the same direction, but there aren't any desks. It isn't an auditorium—there's no stage or clearance meant to showcase people. Just this jumbo screen with nothing on it. _Strange_. What is even stranger is how eerily silent it is. Stepping into it I notice that sound seems to disappear. Not even my footsteps echo on the steps flanking the seat rows. I'm grateful for the flashlight I carry with me everywhere out of habit, because I wouldn't be able to navigate this room in the pitch black without it.

I don't climb up too high, about midway through until I am sitting perfectly centered to the screen. The arms of the chair move up and down, for what I couldn't imagine, but I try lying across the chairs before immediately sitting up again when my side protests the discomfort. Instead I put my feet up on the back of the chair ahead of me, and though no one sits there, it feels rude so I take them down. With the silence surrounding me and the cold darkness as my blanket, I tilt my head back and slowly drift. The sound of my pulse slows and throughout my body I feel the rise and fall the accompanies that moment just before you're asleep.

Until a jarring sound known as Shade's grunt abruptly wakes me to throw me to my feet; my flashlight goes flying, banging helplessly onto the carpet-covered floor. I hear Shade's sigh, see him for an instant, when suddenly the space around me is empty and the sconce lighting on the walls dim to life with soft yellow ambiance. Shade pops back in front of me seated with his big-ass feet dangling over the chair in front of him.

"Geez, Shade, you become more and more of an a-hole with every entrance you make. Did you swipe those from the kitchen?" My chin juts to the handful of grapes he pops and chews in quick succession, and his muffled response come on the heels of three that he has stuffed in his mouth at a single time.

"This place is neat, huh? Called a cinema."

All I can do is shake my head and shrug. I have no clue what he's talking about and can barely understand him around his gross chewing anyway.

"A cinema. The Silvers have them in their fancy Silver cities. You can watch movies on there. You know, movies? Like your stupid school plays except they aren't live. They film them on cameras and you can watch the plays on screens this big at a later time. We could never afford one in the Stilts, but I think there's one in Summerton."

"Cool. Great. Look Shade, we have to leave in 3 hours, so I was hoping to get in a nap before we head out." I normally never rush Shade out like this, but his presence as of late usually alerts me to bad news or some other major shitfest falling at my feet, and I urgently need the quiet right now. I like the nothingness in here, and in another life when we were just two Red kids from the Stilts, we reveled in these moments. Shade would find an empty schoolroom or abandoned house in the meadow, and we would sit together in the lowlight without ever saying a word to one another. Actually, it was Shade who would discover these isolated chasms and, ever the doting sister on her favorite brother, I would follow not too far behind and wait for him to nod his head to the side, allowing me entrance in his sacred space. Shade would write, to whom or what was always a mystery, and I would stare off into the distance and daydream utter nonsense. Occasionally I would close my eyes and slip into that world between sleep and awake where all my thoughts were crisp beautiful images with a hazy aura surrounding them, where I reminisce on the fun memories and pretend the bad ones never existed, and pretend Silvers never existed, and pretend our home was five times the size and my father could walk, and my brothers were home because there was no war, and we would have a fluffy brown dog as a pet because we had the money for those sort of luxuries. Then Shade would close his journal and stand up, holding his hand out to pull me up and over his back, where he would carry me back home so he could go out with whatever girl he was into that week. The most painful realization hits me here in these cushioned seats aside my brother that we will never have those moments again. Life will never be as exquisite and simple as we artfully crafted in those quiet rooms alone together.

As if knowing where my mind was, Shade carefully pulls a velvet pouch from his pocket and rolls it in his hand. There are knocking sounds similar to stones, and with a resigned sigh he pushes the pouch into my palm. "These belong to you. You asked me—" he stops to correct himself, a wince and unmistakable regretful look on his face—"in the future, you asked me to look after these for you."

I don't yet open them, but I feel around the velvet outside and can feel one, two, three, four stones on the inside of the bag. "What are they?"

"Silent Stone, but the kind you impregnated your memory into. The bag is lined to subdue the silencing affect, but they're small enough not to cause any impact on you anyway. I thought you might want them, for moments like these." He waves his hand in the empty, dim space around us. "To remind you of what's worth fighting for, from someone who has been there and knows best—you. I'll see you in a few days, sis. Love you."

After Shade leaves, I fiddle around with the bag for another hour. The curiosity eats at me, but right behind it is fear. I cannot bear to see Cal die again. I cannot stomach Maven's face. Would I have chosen gruesome images to warn myself of what's to come if I fail? I would hope that future me would be kinder on her younger, fragile soul.

Finally, I place my fingertips inside the scrunched velvet and gently pull the pouch open. I can just faintly feel the hum of the silencing prickling the tiny hairs on my arms, but it's hardly worth worrying about. At first glance in this weak light, they all look relatively similar in size and shape. There's no clue which to go for, so I stop being such a child about it and grab the first one on top. It's off-white and smooth, smaller than an egg but just the same shape. I enclose the stone in my hand and close my eyes. On a deep inhale, I await the memory I've left for myself…

_"Ow! Shit…"_

_"Oooh, that's a bad word, Aunt Mare." A sandy-blonde boy of about 3 or 4 stares wide-eyed at me from his stool in the kitchen. His face is demonstrative, with heavy and curious brows that remind me of Shade. His son takes after him, but he has the bright blue eyes of his mother. I thought it would be good practice to have him over for a sleepover for the weekend so Farley could go see the Colonel and take care of some business back on the Lakelands side of the Guard, but this kid hears_ everything _I say and then goes around announcing it and getting me into trouble with-_

_"What's a bad word?" Cal asks as he steps into the kitchen. He's polished and dressed very Kingly today, probably for a series of meetings with the High Houses. That reminds me, once Farley returns, we'll be holding a State meeting with the Guards from Lakelands and Norta to discuss the trouble brewing in Piedmont between emerging Newbloods and Silvers down there. I wonder if she'll touch on that with the Lakelander Guard over the weekend._

_Cal comes to my side to kiss me and of course rub my 9-month going on 5-year belly, but he notices my red hand hovering over the pan of eggs I have cooking. "Mare, this is why we have cooks, my girl. Why are you up? One of the housemaids could have attended to this."_

_"I can cook eggs, Cal. I was just startled by something, that's all. It's nothing Sara can't heal."_

_"I'll call for her—"_

_"Caaal," I whine over his incessant niggling, "I'm fine! Leave the woman alone. I'm not going to die from a small burn." I roll my eyes, earning me a swift swat to my side of my butt as Cal passes by to the counter where Nikolas sits with his model planes Cal purchased for him. They've been working on assembling these for days. Nikolas is adept at putting them together independently, and Cal welds the metal pieces for added stability. They make a cute team, and I'm grateful again that Farley is happy to have Nikolas around as much as we like. She won't live here, of course—hates the palace and hates Archeon, but Cal and I used to visit her at the Web, the Guard refugee base that she commands and works out of, before traveling became too dangerous. Maven is still out there, after all, plotting from wherever the hell he ran off to after the Kingdom revolted and helped us to force him out of the throne and banished from Norta. There is talk Piedmont took him in, but we aren't sure and their King isn't willing to acknowledge a 'filthy Red and a traitor King.'_

_"Uncle Cal, Aunt Mare said 'shit'. That's a bad word."_

_Cal cocks his head to the side and deadpans at me. If this expression had a caption, it would say 'Really, Mare?' I can just hear the monotone voice in my head. I turn to hide the slight blush I feel warming my neck at the slip-up. I really, really need to learn to watch my mouth._

_"Yes, Nik, a bad word indeed. Let's not repeat it anymore, shall we? Aunt Mare will say sorry for saying a bad word."_

_Now it's my turn to give Cal back the same deadpanned look, but his brows raise in challenge so I relent just to get him off my ass._

_"I'm sorry, Nikolas. I won't say the word again, and you won't repeat it either, deal?"_

_"You have to shake your hand on a deal or it's not real," he tells me when he puts his hand across the counter. I take it and give it a firm shake, and he returns to his toy plane like it's nothing. From the corner of my eye, I see Cal smirking. He ducks his head to hide it, but it's too late for him. Slowly, I saunter over to him and press myself to his back. He immediately moves his hands behind me to wrap around my waist, and I place my hands on his thighs, slowly stroking the length of them, each time brushing the pulsing length of something else. I innocently place my cheek on his shoulder, resting it there to watch Nikolas until he's fully immersed in his toy. Then I use the opportunity to turn my face against Cal's shoulder, pressing my lips onto his collar, trailing the wet tip of my tongue up the side of his freshly-shaved neck where I taste the faintest hint of his eucalyptus shave cream. I flatten my tongue against his jaw and suck on another spot along the chiseled line until I feel his breath hitch and a warm exhale release from his parted lips. Then I move in for the kill, lightly kissing over his cheek until my lips meet his earlobe. I suck and nibble, just long enough to rev him up, and I whisper breathlessly in his ear, "Satisfied, Calore?"_

_He groans so low that I don't hear it so much as feel it between my legs. The worst part about this game, one that I am damn good at, is Cal is not the only one left needy. I want to pull away, but his hands firmly grip the back of my thighs and hold my closely to him. His fingers massage my flesh in small upwards circles until my butt rests in his hands and he kneads and squeezes that, too._

_Damn, damn, damn._

_One look into his lap and I know I still have the upper hand._

_"Do you think he can play by himself for 5 minutes?" Cal mumbles to me._

_"The way I'm feeling, we won't need that long."_

I shudder a gasp as the memory clears from my head and scramble to put the stone back in its pouch before I get way more than I bargained for. God, I hope Shade hasn't seen any of these. My thighs still tingle with future-Cal's ministrations. If that's what I'm getting on the regular in the future, I'm jealous of myself until I realize sometime later in the future, Cal is dead and I was powerless to stop it. I'm glad to know there are good memories in the meantime, that my life wasn't all misery and angst, at least for a few good years. The next stone looks like a child has colored on it, but otherwise similar to its predecessor. I curl my fingers around this one and wait for the memory to come to life.

_"Mare, I don't know that I like this."_

_"It'll be fine, Cal. He's got to learn somehow."_

_"Just seems a bit dangerous. Shouldn't he be older?"_

_"I was his same age when my brothers pushed me in the river. In the river, Cal. I managed to survive it. This is a shower. We've had rainstorms worse than this. Besides, we're only twenty feet away. He'll be fine. He asked to do this by himself. He's a big boy now, remember?" I repeat the words Tanner said to me when he begged to go in the shower Cal and I use instead of taking his usual bath in our oversize marble tub. It didn't take much convincing for me. Leaning over the tub every night to bathe him is killing my back, but Tanner doesn't like when Cal bathes him because Cal won't let him play for an hour. Calls it 'dillydallying'. I usually just bring a book with me and let the kid do his thing, but Cal would have a fit if he knew that I wasn't keeping my eye on him every second._

_That's a big parenting difference between Cal and me. Cal grew up under watchful handmaidens who sat alongside him for everything. Damn smothering him is what they did. When it comes to Tanner, I want them to have as little interaction as I can manage. He has one nanny who looks after him when I am tending to political affairs or when Cal and I have dinner engagements, but for the most part, I am intent on raising him as much like any other Red child, with a few more allowances to ensure his wellbeing. I take great pride in knowing he will never go hungry like I have. He will never be cold like I suffered through. He'll never sleep in crowded, stuffy beds, and he'll have a much better education than I ever had access to. But I will not give in to the luxury of servants, and it annoys me altogether that we have them. Cal insists they're not indentured, that these are people who needs jobs and Royal servitude is a well-paid income for otherwise jobless Reds._

_But then, I've seen firsthand the secrets servants can carry when they work this closely to the Royal family—I was one of those secrets, after all. So I limit the time they spend with Tanner to those I strongly trust, and even then, it's never more than a few hours at a time._

_"Mommy, are you watchin'?" Tanner has a cloth in one hand and has clumsily spilled half the bathing oil on it to wash himself. Next to me, Cal cringes and tenses. "He could slip on that," he murmurs._

_"I'm watching, baby! You're doing so well! Don't forget your hair and be careful of your eyes so you don't get soap in them. …And be very still so you don't slip on the floor, okay?"_

_Through the clear glass I can see him giving me a thumbs up with squinty eyes and a baby-toothed grin. The water cascading from the ceiling looks magical all around him, but then again, ever since he came into our lives, everything looks magical._

_I can feel Cal watching me, and I know he has been the recipient to the biggest shift in me of all. Gone is the bitter, hot-tempered girl with the biggest chip on her shoulder. Gone are the days on end we spent bickering sickeningly at one another until one of us would break and set something on fire or cause lightning to split the air in two. While I do miss our rough and anger-fueled sex life—_ that was incredible— _I don't miss the darkness we surrounded ourselves in until we learned how to let go and love one another the way we each deserved. Now I radiate joy and warmth, and it's all because of that adorable, chubby-cheeked tot taking a shower by himself on a Sunday night._

_Cal steps behind me and wraps his arms over my shoulders, locking his hands over my stomach. He's tall enough that his chin rests easily on the top of my head, but I much prefer to lean my head against his shoulder so he can kiss my temple and speak softly in my ear._

_"He's cute, isn't he?"_

_"Duh," I answer him. "He's mine. I guess you played a little role in that, too." I feel his chest rumble with his quiet laughter._

_"I was thinking maybe I could play that role again sometime soon…" It's not the first time Cal has hinted at wanting another, but I resigned that I didn't want a second child until Maven was gone for good. It's too dangerous. I'm already anxious to my limit that he could come back and hurt Tanner, but Cal and I have gone through hypothetical emergency response situations so many times now that I feel confident I could handle things if Maven were to show up. Two kids, though…I just don't know if the timing is right._

_But I hate telling Cal no on this. I hate watching his face fall, and I hate the sad smile he gets as he tries to understand why I wouldn't want another. I do, I truly do, just not yet. Let me enjoy the perfect bubble that we live in now just a little while longer. So instead of answering, I kiss the underside of his jaw, licking a few times to distract him enough so this topic doesn't become a full-blown conversation._

_It works, as it usually does for the insatiable man, and my knees go weak when he growls in my ear and pulls my backside closer to him to feel just how insatiable he is._

_"Otay, I'm DONE!" Tanner shouts, effectively breaking our spell. He still has suds in his hair that he always fails to rinse completely without help._

_"You're not done. You have soap in your hair."_

_His temper is a fun mix between Cal's and mine. Real fun. He stomps his right foot and scrunches his face in an angry pout. "No, I'm done!"_

_"Son, you're not done," I argue with a firmer voice. Cal always chides me for this. 'Why argue with a three-year-old, Mare?' but I haven't learned the trick Cal has. When Cal speaks, Tanner is totally mesmerized and obedient, but Cal is also the pushover between us. 'Just 5 More Minutes Dad' is the running gag around here._

_He stomps his foot again. "I am done! I am too! I rinsed-ed it all gone!" When he stomps again, I'm about to tell him off for his fit, but the single stomp turns into a full meltdown series of stomping his little feet._

_"Tanner stop, you're going to—" But Cal's instruction comes a second too late and with a painful gasp I watch Tanner slip in what feels like slow motion. I can't get to him fast enough before his head will hit the tile floor and I can already imagine the nauseating cracking sound, but none of that happens. I blink and the water is frozen—not like ice or anything, but literally not moving, and Tanner is lying on the tile floor seemingly unhurt but shocked. I blink again, only half seconds have passed, and the water comes raining out again. I scoop him up and into my arms, while Cal looks him over diligently to ensure he's alright. I'm too busy staring at the shower to figure out what happened._

_"What WAS that?" I ask Cal, but he shakes his head and mouths 'Later.' We get Tanner toweled off and dressed in his nightclothes, then I read him a couple stories before he's zonked out. He sleeps with his arms wide and his mouth open, snoring like a mini-train. He's an early-riser just like Cal, but on mornings that he wakes ungodly early before the both of us, he comes through the door that connects his room to ours, crawls into our bed, and he's out like a light snoring right in my ear until I am forced awake._

_When I'm back in our room, Cal is finishing up his nighttime routine. I shut our bathroom door behind me, beginning to undress for a shower. "So he's a water-weaver? Like an Osanos?"_

_"I don't know. I can see where it may look that way. It was weird though. It didn't feel like he stopped the water."_

_"Yeah but that's exactly what it looked like, Cal. The shower stopped the second he slipped. When I first discovered my ability, it was because I was falling and scared. The arena, remember?"_

_With his chin lifted as he shaves, he smiles at me. "I remember. Scared the shit out of me."_

_I snort. "Me too, babe. But I think that was it—his ability, I mean. Water control. I don't know how I feel about that. On one hand, it amplifies my ability—so we'll be a pretty badass duo. On the other hand, it's a direct threat to your ability, so that's kind of balls."_

_"I don't know. I'm not saying abilities don't manifest this early, because they do and mine did, but I think we need to wait and see before we jump to conclusions."_

_I'm not the definitive answer on this either. I've seen abilities start in Newbloods as late as midlife adulthood and as early as Tanner's age, but no matter how they start, it's always very weak the first few times. Never the full picture of what they're capable of. Hell, my ability emerged as I was being electrocuted on a forcefield, and that in itself was extraordinary._

_"But there is something else I want to jump on…"_

_My lips turn up at his remark. I stand naked as a jaybird in our bathroom, ready to shower off the day, while Cal stands in his muscle-defining underwear. And I do mean defining—they hug his hips and glutes and currently they're straining over his bulge. "Too bad you already showered."_

_"I'm up for getting dirty again if you'll stick around to get clean with me, too."_

_I toss my head back on a laugh and Cal picks my body up against his to press his lips to the hollow of my throat absorbing the sensation. "I love you,_ _beautiful woman. I can't believe you're here, that you gave me a son, that you're mine. His lips rain kisses all over my neck and face before planting a fir kiss to my mouth. I reciprocate in kind, promising to say the words later when I come up for air._


	34. Chapter 34

**If there was a title for Most Confusing Girl in Norta, Mare would be crowned and reign supreme. Not an hour has gone by in the last week—hell, maybe even the last month, when Mare and I haven't fought about something ranging from insignificant to cataclysmic. But tonight as we trek through the heavily forested landscape making our way to the Blackrun, Mare stays as close to my side as she can get without me carrying her. If it weren't for our hands gripping the shoulder-straps of our packs to relieve the weight, I would hold her hand. Okay, no, that's impractical while hiking through a dark forest. But I'd want to.**

**I don't know what signaled this change in her, but from the minute I found her half-asleep in our stripped bed late this afternoon, she has been nothing but soft-spoken and _sweet_ even. She hugged me just before we left, teased me affectionately about scruff on my chin, and every quarter-mile or so she looks up at me with a smile. It's nice, I enjoy it, but man is it unnerving. I half want to ask her if she's okay, but I don't want to fuck up what we have going on right now. She knows how serious this mission is more than any of us, I think, so I expected her to be aloof and distant in her own head for the rest of our journey. I couldn't have been more wrong.**

**"You packed the tent, right?" she asks me in a hushed whisper.**

**Farley doesn't think we'll make it to the Blackrun before the rain starts, so we all agree to stop and set up camp for sleep before picking up the hike again in the wee hours of the morning. I know for a fact I packed the tent, as I'm the one carrying it. "Yeah, why?"**

**"I just want to make sure we have our privacy later when we finally set up camp."**

**My eyes bug out of my head and my jaw drops, but Mare places a finger under my chin to lift it closed. She chuckles quietly, with flirtatious spirit I haven't seen from her in a long while. What has gotten into her!**

**No one seems to have heard her either, thank fuck. Farley leads the pack, with Red Guardsmen immediately following her. Then Silvers, Newbloods, and finally Mare and I trailing. Julian and Sara both insisted on coming, and though I adamantly protested it, Mare made a logical point that was hard to argue. Should we injure ourselves on the hike or come across a patrolling Silver, we could use both of their abilities. It pisses me off to drag more family into this, but Julian deserves as much chance to fight as any of the rest of us do.**

**"Mare!" we hear Kilorn hiss from the front of the pack. "Have you ate shit yet or you still got your feet on the ground? Ow!" Farley socks him right in the shoulder much to my delight. Mare can't help herself and hisses a reply back to him.**

**"Happy to spare a foot to plant firmly up your ass, Kilorn. Keep running your mouth."**

**"The both of you will find yourselves walking funny if you don't SHUT UP." Farley's tone is not to be brokered with, but neither Mare nor Kilorn can help themselves and they trade a few more jabs before Farley spins around and stares me down. ' _Handle her'_ is what she's silently telling me, but with a raise of my eyebrows I ask her, ' _Have you met Mare?_ '**

**"Twit," Mare mumbles, but it's all affection and brotherly love. There was a time I used to be jealous of Kilorn for the closeness he shared with Mare, but watching them together is similar to watching Mare with Shade. I think Mare had just resigned herself to Kilorn the way he'd resigned himself to her. Two misfits and ne'er-do-wells leaning on each other out of comfort, not passion. I find myself wishing I was like them sometimes. Life is so much simpler for them, even though it is harsh and lacks luxury. Still, they don't have a Kingdom's expectations, or Royal traditions that must be followed, or the birthright of a crown that is heavy with responsibility. They just get to be, and they are never required to be anything more than what they are.**

**Mare asks me what's on my mind, but I have a feeling she wouldn't want to hear me talk about how easy Red lives must be. Even phrasing it that way sounds insensitive, so I wisely keep my mouth shut and revert to a mode I know best.**

**"We will need to stop soon to set up camp. I can smell the rain in the air," I look off toward the distant sky to avoid making eye contact with her. That would give my cover-up away instantly.**

**Mare snorts and peers into the sky with a squint. "Since when can you _smell_ the rain in the air, Cal?"**

**I just shrug. I know it is coming quickly. Call it advanced knowledge of the outdoors. Call it intuition. Not twenty minutes later, we are scrambling to set up camp and Mare is groaning at the cold rain pelting her underdressed petite frame.**

**"I told you to put on a coat," Kilorn teases her. He doesn't have anything to lose; he isn't sleeping with her tonight. In fact, I told her the same just before we left when she insisted she walks faster with as little added weight on her as possible.**

**_But when the temperature drops to freezing, what then?_ I'd asked.**

**_Then I would think the guy I'm shacking up with will use his ability to product massive amounts of heat to keep me warm,_ she deadpanned.**

**A cold and wet Mare is a cranky Mare, but her job is an important one. We need distraction in the form of a lightning storm until we complete camp setup, at which point Layli will conceal our site overnight. I don't think any legion would be patrolling the forest, let alone in a pouring thunderstorm, but Farley disagrees and wants to ensure we can rest peacefully without the buzzing of paranoia rattling our heads.**

**Mare heads toward a taller hill in a distance where she's barely seen. I watch with fascination as her silhouette appears on a backdrop of brilliant white and purple flashes dances angrily through the wasteland we are heading into. The visual is breathtaking. She disperses the lightning evenly throughout the land around us, though it's on the Choke's grounds that she sends the most violent jolts. The rain picks up, blurring my vision, but still she stands—a black figure against blinding light. Off to the side I hear Kilorn shouting after her, telling her to wrap up the display, and then it dawns on me. This isn't just Mare performing a task she was asked to do. Something else is happening in her head. Before I can take my second step toward her, Farley's hand wraps over my shoulder to hold me back. Instead, it's Farley who approaches Mare with her head slightly lower than her usual demonstrative self. Her walk is slow and purposeful; it isn't a walk into battle, nor one into redemption. It's one toward purgatory. The subspace between life and death where guilt lives. I only recognize it because I dwell there. When I look off toward Kilorn, I'm not surprised to see him staring after them. He furiously blinks away the rain falling into his eyes, until his eyes meet mine and his mouth quirks into a sad half-smile. It's then I know he lives in the same place, too.**


	35. Chapter 35

Watching the sky split in two at my command is a heady feeling. Pure adrenaline on endless loops from ears to toes. Little bolt here, ground-rumbling strike there. Then I see the Choke in the distance, where smoke rises from the literal pit of terror. Bree. Tramy. Shade. In another lifetime, Kilorn and I would have seen its wrath along with the rest of them. I've heard it called the Red Grave by Silvers having a boisterous laugh at our expense.

 _Never again_.

I suspect one of the group would pull me from the darkness I am looking into. Cal, unless he understands why I need this. Kilorn, unless he's too afraid to approach the little lightning girl. But not Farley. I expected Farley to shrug it off and send one of those two to ultimately pull me back from this precipice. I'm shocked when it's her who comes to my side and stands quietly. Literally shocked, because her abrupt presence causes me to short-circuit in a way. The electricity in the air fizzles out on my skin with a low crackling and nothing more than a tickle on my arms.

"My best friend and her boyfriend tried to escape conscription. She had turned 18 in the winter, but her parents had listed her birth six months later in secret to buy her some time…though for what, they didn't know. She was a tiny thing she was born, you see, so none of the authorities questioned it. He would turn 18 that same June, and that January they decided to run away together. I was 17 then. For months I watched them plan and perfect their escape. It would be early in the evening when they would leave. The lack of electricity in the Lakelands makes it easier to sneak around in the dark, and they figured twelve hours 'til dawn would be plenty of time to get them as far west as their feet would take them. West Lakelands is sparse with Silvers, you see, because they prefer to stay in the bigger capitals. Close enough to the warfront to enjoy the sight of our spilled blood, far enough to keep their feet clean of it." Farley pauses only to spit off to the side, as if to clear space for the bitterness of what she's about to say. "Her brother sold them out. Her own brother. Said she would dishonor and endanger her family if she became an evader, but no doubt the reward of one thousand crowns was an added weight he would sell his soul for. Piece of filth.

They found the two less than an hour after they ran off. It was so fast that the cup of tea she'd made me right before they left was still warm. They had hung him straight away. Male deserters don't get second chances. For her, they left her with a worse fate. They sent her to the Choke. She didn't even get basic armor. No weapon. Nothing to defend herself, and certainly nothing to fight with. It was her death sentence. If she were to survive the first day, she would be a Red soldier like the rest of them. If she didn't, then her punishment would be fulfilled.

From what they told her family, she died in the morning as the sun was rising. It was the seventeenth hour of continuous battle, and she survived long enough to see the dawn."

 _Rise, red as the dawn._ The Scarlet Guard's official creed, but for Farley, so much more than that.

"When you and Warren came to me seeking an out from conscription, I should have saved you then. I should have taken you both in, and you would have reunited with your brother. You would have seen everything he sacrificed for you so you could live. Everything could have been, _should have been_ so different had I taken you two in that night in Will's wagon."

Would it have been so different if Farley had saved us then? This war would have happened regardless. I would have developed my ability without an audience of Silvers, but also without any help or understanding of what was happening. Would Maven and Elara still have betrayed Cal and his father? Would the Guard have taken me in then, a Red girl with Silver abilities? I've seen the disgusted looks and fear in their eyes. Hell, I've seen that in Kilorn, the boy I've known all my life. Would we really have been better off? _No._ The answer from within is as strong and steady as my heartbeat. _It would have always come back to this place._

"We are here because we are meant to be here," I finally reply to her. We don't make eye contact. We don't hold each other or offer comfort or condolences. We have both lost far too much. We have both given more than we have lost. "Tomorrow, we rise, red as the dawn. For your friend. For Shade…"

"For our baby," Farley chokes out.

"For the Mare and Kilorn of yesterday," I continue.

"For the Reds of tomorrow."

I wrap my hand around her forearm in the same way she did when she welcomed me to the Scarlet Guard back at the palace at Summerton. "And for the Newbloods of the future."

When we speak again, we speak in unison. "Rise, Red as the dawn."


	36. Chapter 36

**"They'll start marching at dawn. I suspect they'll force the youngest ones to the front lines, with the more experienced Reds directly behind them and pushing them ahead. Silvers will flank the sides and far enough back to avoid any direct blows."**

**Farley assesses my words and quickly proposes her plan. "We take out as many Silvers on the sides as we can; they're our biggest threat, so incapacitating them quickly will buy us more time. If we-"**

**Mare, who's been uncharacteristically quiet during this strategy meeting, shakes her head and proceeds to interrupt Farley with her quick words punctuated by the intensity of adrenaline that I know rushes through her as it does me. "Time is irrelevant here. We don't have enough of it, and any time we spend fighting and not saving it is a waste of our resources. We have a singular mission: get all of those Reds out alive. Every last one of them. I could give a fuck about the Silvers."**

**"Barrow, it's not like they're going to step aside and let us help ourselves to their army," Farley scoffs. "We can't duck and dodge them for long. They'll pick us off one by one!"**

**"Then when you shoot, you shoot to kill. If you carry a knife, you aim for their head or heart. Anyone who gets in your way of saving those kids, dies. We don't incapacitate. We don't trade blows. We are there to save Reds, so any Silver wanting a pissing contest about is going to get a fatal end for it."**

**I wish I could blame it on the 5 A.M. chill, but I know the wash of cold running through me has nothing to do with the air around us. Mare grows murderous by the day; finally, the rage festering with her, coiled with the pain of her loss and the sting of betrayal, has built a pyre for this moment. She'll light the spark, while Maven will burn it, along with her, to the bloody fucking ground.**

**I know he'll be here today. I haven't told Farley, not even Mare, but I know he will be here. Little brother won't miss the bragging rights to the most insidious event since my great-great-grandfather burned Reds alive on the bridge at Archeon. Here, Maven sets the tone of his reign. Dangerous, malicious, reckless. His mother may have been the mastermind, but Maven need only pick up the cards she dealt and lay them out again. He's learned enough from her to continue what she started.**

**In truth, I haven't told Mare because I don't know where she stands. I know she vows to kill him, and if provoked, I believe I can, too. What kind of brother does that make me? Should Maven pay for the sins of his mother? Do we get a chance at redemption? I want to believe I can break the cycle, for Mare's sake and for Maven's, but if he does not relent, I don't know who will pull the trigger first. I know Mare has killed before, out of survival first, anger second. But this…with Maven, she'll kill him because she hates him. She hates what he did to her. She hates what he allowed her to do for what was unknowingly his gain. And mostly, she hates herself for loving him. Or thinking she loves him-I don't know. All that hatred bottled inside of her, with Maven's death as her relief. I'm terrified of what becomes of her when she lets that vitriol unleashed. None of what Maven says and nothing he could offer her would grant him forgiveness in her eyes, but as a once and future King, I know better. I have to believe that if Maven seeks absolution, I would have to grant him the chance. He's my brother. The love Mare had for him couldn't hold a candle to that bond.**

**"Calore? We in agreement then? Hey, Princeling! Are you even awake?" Farley steps into my hazy vision of Mare's silhouette. I can't make out Mare's features in the blur, but as my eyes focus over Farley's shoulder, I see Mare's eyes burning into mine. Her mind is made up. She will kill whomever necessary to save her people.**

**"I don't advocate death—"**

**"Just torture," Mare's interruption is mumbled, barely audible, but I hear it all the same.**

**"But our mission here is to save Reds. On that end, Mare is right. We get as many Reds out as quickly as possible, and we don't hang around for a fight we can't win."**

**"Is that all?" Mare holds my gaze with a glare, and it's as if she is both disappointed in my words and unsurprised by them. My look in return is one of exasperation. What does she expect me to say?! _Kill them all! Have a bloodbath in my friends' limbs!_ I've already proven my loyalty to her and her cause, but I draw the line at openly inviting them to kill my own kind. When she turns on her heel to walk off toward the clearing, I roll my tired eyes and grasp at the last vestiges of patience.**

**"Ada, let's go over the flight details again."**


	37. Chapter 37

_I will not cry today. I will not cry today._

As I go about wrapping my hands, wrists, ankles, and feet, the mantra in my head is not one of someone about to head into the deadliest battle of her life. I don't give myself a pep talk or run through final words that will serve as some of our last memories. Brainwashing myself into stoicism serves a more selfish interest. I don't want them to see me cry. I don't want them to know I wish we'd never come this far. I insisted on doing this ritual myself in solitude, a kind of penance for the weight of what I've put us in. This is a necessary fight, but there's no doubt that it's mine and mine alone. No one wants to lose a bunch of Red children, but even opposing Silvers share a common disgust for Reds. We are about to head onto a dilapidated battlefield sandwiched between two sides of Silvers. It's a death sentence at best. A lifetime of torture at worst.

Kilorn, always epically well-timed, quietly sits next to me, unaware of the slow descent in the darkness I've made home. Or maybe he does know, by the way his eyes seem to glisten and observe me with warm reverence. A mange of a girl scrounging for peppers and 'lec rations, content with marrying her best friend or for nothing more than the sheer relief and familiarity of it.

"What's the chance of us dying today?" I'm thrown by the soft question, genuine in its concern, but hidden behind an unassuming tone. I know Kilorn well enough to know he's scared, something he usually hides with bravado, but the matter-of-fact question throws my heart into my throat and I'm forced to swallow it down with the rest of my unshed tears.

_I will not cry today._

With a shrug that painfully betrays the storm inside me, I avoid answering him completely. I can't. If I open my mouth, I'm not sure of what will come out. I ignore the grim set of his lips. I ignore that jarring sniff that is meant to ward of his tears. So I apologize by taking his hand and wrapping it in the same fashion I've done my own. When I've finished, he takes my hand back and holds it for a while. He doesn't say anything, and I don't feel the urge to fill the heavy space between us either. But just as my jaw starts to tremble and my cheek is bruised from biting it, just as I'm about to betray myself and drown in the rough waters of unshed tears, Kilorn turns up my palm and places a tiny gem hanging on a small fishhook. "For family, right?"

Time slows down so extraordinarily acutely that I feel the wisp of wind pick up strands of my hair blow them across my face, obscuring Kilorn's earnest face. I feel the two-tone thumps of my heart, the rhythm of love's marching band the perfect backdrop to the sincerity of this moment. So many times I've thought I may never see my best friend again. It's especially true now, but more than that, I know that this battle will irrevocably change us all. There's remnants of false hope that we will all make it out alive, but there's zero chance we will make it out unchanged. I feel it in bones, and I see it through blurred vision in Kilorn's eyes.

"You get out of there, okay?" Despite the aching the shakes my body, my voice remains clear and firm. "When it all goes to hell, you run like mad and get out. Find Gisa. Take care of her and my mom and dad. They will take care of you, too. Just promise me you'll get out, Kilorn."

I don't see him nod because in an instant he's crushed me to his chest and buried his face in my hair at the crook of my neck. The lump in my throat now burns, and my eyes burn, my stomach burns, and the spot against my neck where Kilorn cries burns. It hurts so much that I have to open my eyes to make sure it isn't Maven's doing.

**(…)**

The Choke is awful, a goddamn miserable wasteland. It smells horribly of decay. The desolate ground appears black from a distance, but I see from right under my feet that it isn't black at all. It's a deep crimson, the result of a century of bloodstains. No Silver streaks break the flat plane of darkness here. Of course not, because Silvers don't come here to die.

Sarah and Julian will stay on the outskirts of the field, waiting to receive any of our injured or intervene with errant Silvers who approach the transport that Ada will be flying in at my signal. Our battle cry will be to the tune of a lightning storm that will conceal the sounds of the airjets—three of them in total, which should be just enough, a calculation I've gone through with Ada and Farley a half dozen times over the last 24 hours, to take every Red life and Silver ally out of here. No one dared to mention that we probably wouldn't fill these jets to capacity anyway. The inevitable reality that not all of us will make it is something even the worst of us pessimists kept to ourselves over the last few days of organizing.

As the sun looms over the horizon, the sky turns a beautiful series of deep orange and goldenrod. In another place, where trees surround a small town of houses on legs by the river, this would be the time that the leaves are turning these very same colors. Sunrises or sunsets, they are all the very same to me nowadays, but this one is so spectacular that I can't help but feel like it is special for me. That is means something, or it marks some personal significance I don't yet understand. Beyond the beautiful sight, there are no trees here on this barren ground. Just a stained expanse of hard clay-like dirt. There is no crisp morning air. Only thick, heavy fog suspended between the orange and crimson. It clings to us, sticking our clothes to our skin, and I quickly vow to myself to never return to this goddamn miserable place again.

"They'll be marching soon," Cal whispers. "Mare, you ready?"

My nod is seen by no one, so I clear my throat and trust my voice to confidently get out the next two words without stuttering. "I'm ready."

Another 6 seconds pass, and then Cal hisses across to me. "Now."

I no longer need to raise my hands to start the lightning. It comes as easily to me as I look up and tug on the fringes of electricity always thrumming through the air and create my own for enhancement. With the heavy fog, it looks like a storm—not terribly uncommon for this time of year in this place, but I focus on keeping it and natural as I can control.

"Hold 'til Red boots hit the ground."

I make a face that can only be described as ultimate sarcasm but otherwise keep my thoughts on Cal's lingo to myself. It's nearly impossible to hear the sounds of marching over the thunderstorm I'm manning overhead, but I manage to make out a pulsing sound. A _thrum thrum thrum_ , left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Hundreds of soldiers in row after row marching across the field into the fog. Even from this vantage point, I can see their uniforms are crimson and tattered—too big, too small, and too heavy a burden on what amounts to maybe one hundred children on the front two lines. A loud crack whips through the air, and I suck in air quickly knowing it was my fault. Instead of a scolding, Cal places his hand on my shoulder, reminding me to breathe and stay focused.

"On my count," he murmurs.

What he says next shocks the hells out of me, but it's Farley who nearly doubles over or faints. There are no mistaking his words: the powerful timbre on which he delivers them. The crystal clear enunciation. I vow to myself to commit it to memory. To hold onto his declaration until the very last of my days. "Rise Red," he begins, and the chorus following his lead takes not a single pause to finish it out.


	38. Chapter 38

_Left, right, left, left, right, duck._ It's been an hour swishing by Silvers, relying more so on my speed and agility than expending all of my energy on sustaining lightning storms. I am equally drained and powered by my own adrenaline that pushes my body forward without any conscious effort. My dad calls it "running on fumes", but I never understood it until today. I have no time to keep tabs on how many Red lives we've rescued, but if the sea of red uniforms ahead is any indication, it isn't nearly enough. There are hundreds to go, but every minute becomes more dangerous than the last. Silvers are stepping onto the battlefield now that the promise of the Traitor Prince and Red Queen are up for grabs. It's a complication I hadn't considered: that my life would be more valuable than any, or all, of these Red soldiers. So my new strategy is not to personally escort Reds from field to plane, but to outrun and outlast the Silvers who are biding our time looking for me.

"Molls, you got a snack?!" Every now and then I hear Kilorn's voice, using my covert nickname he coined for our missions. I am just so grateful to hear him, alive and sounding strong, that I don't care what he calls me. So long as he keeps talking to me.

Cal stays close—way closer than I think he should, though I feel anchored by his presence. He's helpful, too, alerting me to upcoming Silvers by House so I can better defend against them. I've been just short of killing the ones who have outright attacked me by frying their brains until they go unconscious or throwing myself onto their backs to chokehold the breath out of 'em.

As I spot a Strongarm from House Greco terrorizing a small group of three Red boys, all younger than Gisa, I deviate from my newly-formed strategy to sprint toward them. I feel a growl reverberate through my skin and know it's Cal's. Cal is unable to call my name without bringing attention to me, but it's no matter because there is no way I can overpower a Strongarm without my electricity. I send a bolt from the heavens down to where the Greco stands. It throws the kids back, and I scoop the first up, then the second, until Farley leaps into the scene out of nowhere. She points her gun at the Silver and manages to shoot without looking because she's simultaneously taking the boys from me. Two go over her soldier, and Kilorn runs in to grab the third in his arms. He holds him to his chest tenderly; it's a heart-stopping reminder that while Kilorn may not be the fastest, or the strongest, or the brightest, he has unparalleled compassion. You would never know that he has spent most of his life, save for me, totally alone. Together, Farley and Kilorn get the boys to safety, so I move to my next target, and the next. Like an endless zigzag maze, I run from Red to Red, freeing those who are trapped or victim to a Silver opponent. Newbloods and Silver allies run to my side to take Reds from my hands and get them to proper safety.

"Molls, we got company," shouts Kilorn. I turn to where he's pointing to spot rows upon rows of Soldiers in navy uniforms. Their skin is fair; their hair is various shades of blonde. _Lakelanders._

"Oh, are you fucking kidding me? Cal?! Do you see this?" Over several heads away from me, Cal whips around to where we're looking directly at an approaching army of Reds from the Lakelands.

Cal formulates a plan on his way through the crowd. "I can create a wall to push them back. Should buy us some time."

"There's too many of them…"

"None of their Silvers have the fire power I do. I know I can— "

"That's not what I mean. I mean, what about them?" I point to the Lakeland Reds who must be reluctant to head into this shitstorm. "There are innocent Reds in there, too! You think the Lakelands Silvers won't push them into the fire to get across?"

"Mare…" Cal struggles to find the words while picking up our own fallen Reds and righting them back onto their feet and into the hands of awaiting Scarlet Guards. "Look, I get it Mare, but we have our own…we can't save everyone. We can barely save the Reds on our side. Focus. You need to focus. THIS is our mission, Barrow. Those soldiers are better off far, far away from this shit. We can't save everyone," he finishes quietly.

I look over to Kilorn, expecting something out of him to encourage my persistence. He gives me a sad resigned smile that never quite reaches the weary crinkles of his eyes. My responding expression, shot back to him without any hesitation, is one of betrayal and irritation. When I turn on my heel, Farley meets me within arm's length. With her hand on my shoulder and a grave understanding of what we are facing here, she says, "Save Norta first. Bring back the light. Then we'll spread it to the Lakelands." I nod, knowing that if anyone were to take the battle to the Lakelands with me, it would be Farley. The promise of freedom for all Reds and Newbloods makes acquiescence easier to swallow. She turns to Cal. "Push them back!" she commands.

I run the opposite direction, into the depths of Reds getting dragged off by Silver soldiers. The Silvers, now aware of what they are facing here, mean to pull their ranks and hold onto whatever Reds they have left. They would rather _save_ the Reds here, and slaughter or work them on their own terms, than allow them to leave with us. I'm surprised how most Reds fight back; jabbing makeshift shanks into their captors' arms and legs. They push and kick, and they take the blows delivered by much stronger and more powerful men. I pull as many as I can free, but for every one I save, I see two more bodies hit the ground, spilling red blood at my feet. Everything looks to be unravelling.

The Silvers are becoming more desperate and therefore more aggressive by the minute. My body is ravaged with cuts and easily a few of fractures from where Stoneskins and Strongarms have taken hold, but still I push forward. If my battery is emptying, I don't notice it. I have purposefully limited my electricity to spare every ounce of energy to keep this battle up. I thought we would be in and out in an hour, but going on hour four, it does not seem this battle will ever come to an end.

"Mare! On your left!" I think it's Cal giving me the warning, but there's no time to look. Water pelts me on my left side, little bullets that don't pierce the skin but I can't imagine it feeling any less painful than if they were made of metal. They take the wind out of me, but I cannot turn toward the Osanos without risking my vision. It's Joshua, the Newblood Strongarm-Swift hybrid, who's able to take out our Silver opponent. He tackles her with such speed and strength that I can literally hear her bones separate. Her resounding scream is murderous and gargled, followed by the sound of blood bubbling in her slack-jawed mouth. When Joshua picks himself off of her, his eyes widen in horror as he comes to terms with the evidence of his power.

"Is she-?"

"No time, Joshua! Let's go, move!" Hovering over dead Silvers is not where any of us want to be right now.

I push him off toward two Strongarms attempting to corral five or six of our men and watch in fascination as Joshua knocks them all down one by one as if it were a sport. Layli isn't far behind; she makes it to the group and instantly renders them all invisible while Joshua clears the path to the airjet by zigzagging through the crowd and knocking over anyone in his way—Kilorn included. I run over to pull him to his feet, surveying his damage thus far. A deep cut over his eye, dripping blood in his vision I'm sure. A weak shoulder that may even be out of socket. Clothes soaking wet, but then I see blood covering my hands. A brilliant mix of red and silver. Panic hums in my chest while I frantically tear at his clothing to see whether any of this is his. Kilorn pushes my hands off, hissing when I touch sensitive areas.

"Go back, Kilorn. You're going to get killed out here. Go back to Ada."

He shakes his head at me, finally pushing me off him and back a couple feet for space. "Piss off, Mare."

I grab his shoulder, the one I know is smarting, and watch him cringe and hiss at the contact. "Don't be an idiot. At least get back to edge of the clearing and find Sara. You should also check on Ada. She's bound to be overwhelmed, and who knows if any Silvers fell into the mix of our own." I'm just talking out of my ass, saying whatever to convince him to go back and get medical attention, but the very real possibility that what I've just said may be true makes me sick in my stomach. I can't leave the field to find out, not with Cal sill fighting out here. Kilorn considers the hypothetical situation for a fraction of a second, but I can see in his eyes that he worries for Ada and wants to check on her.

"Don't get _yourself_ killed out here, Molls." With that, he takes off toward the clearing, where I hope Sara and Julian are waiting. _Julian._ He could take out any Silver posing a threat to our mission, right? Unless they know what he can do and intentionally avoided him to get into the jet. Fuck.

I search out Cal, finding him scorching the earth of vines that Greenies have managed to produced out of this wasteland. He makes it look like a regular training day for him.

All of our Newbloods look to be alive and fighting, but what's more, we look to be winning. Only a dozen Reds left on this battlefield, and none of our own are down. We may actually pull this off without a Guard casualty. We get these last few to the jet, we create a fire wall barricade staved off by a lightning storm, then we're out of here. Cal could pull back the fire wall blocking Lakelander soldiers, and then it'll be a frenzy against Norta's remaining legion. Damn, that's good. I need to find Cal and tell him. I want to smile in relief, because everything is coming together perfectly, but then I see her. In the distance, slinking toward us with impossible grace and poise. Her blonde hair is tightly pinned back, but it glows like a halo around her. And her smile, that chilling smile that pisses me off as much as it unnerves me, holds its signature malice. I want to scream out to Cal, but with the chaos around us, I don't want to draw any unnecessary attention to him. Evangeline hasn't spotted him yet, but she's an animal hunting her prey. I can tell by the way her eyes scan every single face until finally, her icy blues land on mine. We hold a look for what feels like hours; me, unmoving in a crowd of battle, and her, stalking ahead through a path that is naturally opens for her. This is where I'm supposed to run, but fear holds me here. Not of Evangeline; I trust I can take her down like I have before, and this time I may actually revel in it, but that's not what has me paralyzed. I feel him here. Of course he would be here. Of course he would send her out first. She doesn't know she's his guinea pig, but I know he's using her to tease me.

My feet take over for my scrambled brain and run me deeper into the nest of Silvers, but even with my head low, they are trained to find me. I'm pulled and thrown every which way, fighting as they rip my clothes and jerk my limbs so hard I fear they'll pull me apart. Call yells for me, a faint reassurance as the world starts to spin into darkness. That's when I notice the piercing sound from a Marinos, a particularly strong banshee who has selectively screamed her extraordinary ability into just my head. The Silvers surround me, seemingly uninhibited and rife with bloodthirst. Black spots swirl in my vision as I try to locate Evangeline before she gets too close. If I can see her, I can take her out with a single strike, but with everyone looking at me, it's almost impossible to decipher. What I do find is the raven-haired girl, no older than I am, with her mouth wide and her irises bloodshot. The banshee.

I break free from the several pairs of hands that clutch onto me to ram straight into her middle with the full force of my head and shoulders. Bree and Tramy would do this and call it wrestling. Some game involving them beating the crap out of each other until Mom would shout at them to stop. I never participated per Mom's strict demands, but I'd seen this move enough times to know it's effective. I knock the girl back five feet before she hits the ground with a nasty crack to her head. When I pull up, her mouth is still slack-jawed, her eyes still bloodshot, but there is no longer any life to them.

Before I can finish shaking the last of the banshee effects from my head, an object whistles past my right ear. I don't have to turn and look to know the assailant is Evangeline. I take off running, shoving the Newbloods to the ground as I run past them to keep them out of the line of fire. I have no choice but to scream for Cal when dodging shrapnel becomes an almost impossible feat. I've resorted to pulling other Silvers in my direction to use as human shields—deplorable, but with my life on the line, I have no other choice. Cal reacts mere seconds too late, and a particularly jagged, twisted son of a bitch lodges itself in the back of my calf. He's at my side before I collapse, hurling me over his shoulder and taking off at full speed with a wake of flames trailing us. Now infuriated, Evangeline becomes sloppy and loses the false pretense of composure. It's what cost her our first and subsequent battles. Even with Cal bouncing my brain out of my nostrils, I still manage to form a solid electric ball that I aim right for Evangeline's head. My trajectory is off, courtesy of my awkward position, but there is no way I can run with this thing in my leg anyway. I aim and fire again, this time knocking Evangeline in the shoulder. Cal's gained enough momentum to put significant distance between us and them, so I feel safe in twisting my neck to see where he is taking us. Trenches, it looks like, where the Red soldiers lurk and live before they are called into battle. He dives down into the piss-stained dirt, setting me down gently before setting fire along the miles-long trench.

"That'll buy us some time to find a foxhole. Not much, but enough," he says. "Did you see him?" I don't have to ask who he's referring to, but I don't answer anyway. My jaw is locked shut to keep in groan at my leg. He looks back and forth down each side of the trench, chooses the right, and picks me back up to carry me to what I now understand is a foxhole. Deep in the ground is a small cave-like depression. It has a narrow opening, covered mostly by earth that disguises it well. I have to wiggle and pull my body through the hole and into the space, but once I do I see that it can semi-comfortably accommodate two people if we are both lying down. Next, Call squeezes himself in. He's lean, but muscular along his chest and biceps, so it's a bit of a struggle until I grab his arms and pull him through at the expense of pushing the metal scrap deeper into my leg. I cry out at the sharp sensation before I can help myself. At the last moment, I force my teeth into my bottom lip to muffle the yelp as best I can.

Cal lets me know his intentions when he grabs my leg to examine it. His brow furrows, so I watch him internally debate what to do or how to do it. There really is no alternative until I can get to Sara, but who knows when that will be. If we are able to spend the night here, then leaving something like this in an open wound for a long period of time can cause infection. I am useless without my legs, so I urge Cal to take care of it.

"Just yank it out. Please, make it quick," I instruct him.

Cal shakes his head, furrowing his brow deeper in a refusal to look at me. "Hold on."

"Cal, it's the only way. Stop dicking around about it. Just do it. "

When he looks it me, there's remorse. "It's going to hurt, Mare."

I grumble, "What else is new?" and motion for him to carry on. Cal flips me over so I'm lying on my stomach in the dirt, with my free leg tucked underneath his arm and the injured leg over his lap. He pulls his Guard bandana off his neck and hands it to me as a crumpled ball. I look at it questioningly.

"In your mouth," he whispers quietly, with what I think is shame. "To quiet your..."

I can only nod and shove the Silver-stained, musky cloth into my mouth. I squeeze my eyes shut, my body tenses, and—

"FUCK!" The garbled scream that comes out of me burns my throat. My tears are hot on my cheeks, but the worst of it is over. It takes several minutes of dry-heaving on an empty stomach and gasping ragged breaths for air until Can takes hold of me and reminds me how to breathe. I hadn't noticed he's removed my bandana and tied it off just above the deep cut to slow down the bleeding. He's made a makeshift dressing out of his sleeve, tolerating my kicks like a champ each time his fingers apply any pressure to the wound.

I want him to hold me and rock me. I want him to take be back in his arms and carry me to the jet, where we can get out of this hellhole, mission accomplished. Instead, the softness of Cal's eyes is replaced by a soldier's determination, and the hand that was previously cupping my cheek is adjusting his gun on his hip. "I need to go out to see what's going on out there. If we weren't followed, we can follow the trench to the edge of the Choke and meet up with the rest of them."

"What about Farley?"

"She should already be there. I would have given her an easy out with all those Silvers chasing us. I'm sure she would have taken it."

 _That's a relief._ If we can't make it out of here, Farley is their only hope for escape and survival. I know she would leave us if she had to, and surprisingly, I'm not bitter or angry for it.

"I'll be right back." Cal pulls me from my early self-destruction while he waits at the foxhole's entrance. Suddenly he turns around to kiss me firmly on the lips. No tongue, no steamy passion behind it. All in all, it's not even that memorable of a kiss in and of itself if it were not for the intensity in which he presses his lips against mine, as though he is memorizing the feel of them.

In the dark confined space, I make no effort to inspect the gash in my leg. In fact, if I concentrate hard enough, I can almost pretend like I don't feel blood pulsing out of it and my nerve-endings firing off pain signals every goddamn millisecond. After a few minutes of that, I have managed to lull myself into a zone of subspace. My whole body hurts, I'm shaking and riddled with anxiety, but I also feel like my head is somewhere else. I can _feel_ , but I can't…feel.

_"What the fuck am I even saying?"_

"Good question. What are you saying?"

I feel myself vomit in my mouth just before I open my mouth to scream. Shade pulls himself back against the wall as best he can, but with limited leg room, he realistically only moves a few inches.

"Geez, Mare, please don't hurl. Seriously, it'll be disgusting for us both. You'll hurl, then I'll hurl, then you'll hurl…"

"Please shut up, Shade." I take in big puffs of air until the pressure in my chest has subsided and I feel my world come back into focus.

There's an unavoidable curse that slips when I tuck my leg underneath me to sit up. Shade doesn't say anything but eyes me carefully.

"So, big bro, to what do I owe the pleasure? Shit timing, you know. Kind of in the middle of an epic battle. Could really use your neat ability of transporting us the fuck out of here, you know."

"Does Mom know how unladylike and crass you've become in the last few months? She would be appalled…well, come to think of it, you probably passed that marker 10 years ago," he smirks. I sit and stare, unamused, annoyed by the useless banter, ready for Cal to make it back already, tired, hungry, in pain, sick to my stomach…

Shade's face turns solemn suddenly, and replacing the playful curse of his lips is a sad smile. "I'm here with a purpose, however."

Inside, every muscle clenches. "Spit it out then."

Shade looks up, like he's awaiting some divine sign or listening to a silent conversation I wasn't invited to. "It's time."

I keep my gaze trained on his uneasy movements. The way his eyes avoid mine and how he cracks his knuckles with his thumbs. Eventually he confirms what I already know, somewhere buried deep in the back of my memories.

"I told you, you would know when it's time. This is it. I'm here to help you leave."

"Help me leave? I'm going with you?"

"Yes. I can't really explain where."

I have always trusted Shade with my life, up until Silvers became more involved in our lives and trusting anyone turned into a minute-by-minute exercise. Instinctually, I trust Shade. He's my brother, my blood, my guardian. So maybe it's fear that holds me still and resistant, or maybe it's the niggling of something I am supposed to remember but can't. I scroll through flashes in my head like the yellowed pages of gibberish from one of Julian's massive books, trying desperately to grasp onto the straw that holds unknown importance. Nothing sticks out, and yet, there is something there that is keeping me from putting my life in Shade's hands.

"There is something you're not telling me."

"Yes." He answers honestly, surprising me in his quick bluntness. "There's a lot of things I'm not telling you. I _can't_ , Mare. It will change everything."

"Not good enough, Shade," I shake my head at him. "I saw something. Something happened back in those caves on our last night down there, and I can't put my finger on it, but something tells me not to trust you. I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to…how to put that in a box in my head- "

"Compartmentalize," he interrupts gently.

Tears fill up to the brims of my eyes. "You know what it is. This is different from the big stuff, isn't it? You did something to me…something that hurt me, something I'm supposed to remember..."

" _For_ you, Mare. I did it _for_ you." Shades voice is a little more than a strained whisper, the burning of unshed tears strangling his voice.

A part of me yells in my own head, 'bullshit'. I investigate it, jumping on the voice that is definitely my own, but still foreign in my thoughts. Where it leads is dark and fuzzy.

"Mare, please," he begs. Shade begging. Who would've thought we would ever see the day? "I know it doesn't make sense. I know it doesn't feel right. But you have to come with me. It has to be now. We may not get another chance."

I know this is what I'm supposed to do, though I don't know how I know that. I bite down on my trembling bottom lip to stop myself from crying. I don't dare tell Shade I'm terrified of it all—of him, of leaving Cal, of what Maven will do now and in the future.

There's rustling outside of the foxhole that puts us both on edge. Cal reaches his hand in, I can tell by his distinct bracelet, and calls my name. There have been moments in my life this past year that I have made the wrong choice. Choices that have literally ended the world as we know it, and choices that have killed innocent people, Shade included. I didn't choose Cal before, and the result was cataclysmic. I can't repeat my mistakes. I grab Cal's hand without thinking, allowing him to pull me out and leave Shade behind.

"I can't," I whisper to Shade as I'm pulled out.

Once I'm out, Cal sets me on my feet. His hands rest on his knees for a moment; I can see the exhaustion getting to him. It's getting to me, too. "No one followed. Our path is clear. We have a straight-shot down to the forest, and from there the airjet should be only a mile in." I don't have it in me to respond. I don't trust my own voice to remain steady and confident.

Cal moves to pick me up, but I shake my head and pull back from him. "I can run on it— "

"Mare, the terrain is slippery and bumpy in these trenches. We need to be quick. It'll be easier if I just carry you."

I shake my head again. This time it's firm and demonstrative. "I can keep up, Cal. Let's not give any potential Silvers a single moving target. We didn't make it this far to make it easy for them."

Cal steps aside and lets me go first; a direct challenge with the anticipation that I will fall on my face or prove myself slow and cumbersome. I am that much more determined to push through the excruciating pains shooting up my leg, straight up into my spine, and so deeply resonating it hits my teeth. I run faster than I ever have in my life, jumping over rocks and uneven earth. I narrowly miss other foxhole entrances, but I do manage to keep my shaky feet from catching in any of them. Cal is right behind me, but thankfully I know he's working to keep up.

I see the forest line ahead, where the trench tapers up into the clearing just before the thick blanket of trees begins. I smile wide, laughing in relief at the absurdity of how close we are, how far we came, how _lucky_ we are—

"Agh! Mare! Mare, run!" I turn back to Cal's shouting and rustling to find heavy chains with even heavier metal balls attached pummeling Cal to the ground, twisting around his ankles and pinning his wrists down until Cal has no choice but to fall to his knees. My fingers flex for my electricity, but nothing comes.

"Cal, melt the metal! Melt the metal, you have to melt— "

"I can't! There's nothing…I can't— "

But I don't hear the rest of what he says. All I hear is the growing sound of a familiar click that has haunted my days and my dreams. My eyes grow wide and frightened. Cal notices and I think he calls out to me. I think he asks what's wrong. I can't hear anything but the clicks.

I grab my head, covering my ears in vain, because we all know it's not a sound I can keep out. I drop to my knees, waiting for the onslaught of terror, but I get fizzles. It feels like thousands of tiny sparks, pinpricks really, instead of the usual agonizing self-mutilation. Before I can fully stand and breathe a sigh of relief, I'm back on my knees, a heavy hand on my shoulder to keep me down. I twist my neck from the grasp of his thumb and forefinger pressing firmly into my skin and look up to find Maven. A smiling, gut-wrenching Maven standing over me with what I can only describe as contemptuous glee.

"Ah, ah, stay down there, little lightning girl." Maven squeezes my collarbone, depressing one of the fractures long enough that it snaps. I gasp and cry out at the same time to the tune of Evangeline's snicker.

Maven shoots her a look that instantly silences her, though I can tell it pisses her off in the split second it takes for her to rearrange her features back to her cold indifference.

"Hello, brother," Maven says to Cal. I want to pick out anything brotherly-sounding in his words, but I can't figure it out. The sparks in my body multiply in my strain, but the clicking is only faint. _That's odd._

"Maven." Unlike Maven, there is absolutely no mistaking the hatred in Cal's tone.

"I was going to kill you both on the bridge at Archeon. Make a spectacle of it, you see. Let everyone know what happens when you defy your King—"

"You're not my king," Cal grits out between clenched teeth.

Maven steps forward without ever taking his hand off my shoulder. He leans close to Cal's ear, whispering so low I barely hear him. "Oh but I am. Tsk, tsk. Shame what happened to our father at your hands. Do you see when his eyes flung open just as you separated his head from his body? How surprised and scared he was? Did you see his tongue fall out of mouth like a roast pig?"

Cal violently yanks at his chains, which causes Maven to flinch, though he disguises it poorly when he steps behind me. Cal keeps shouting shouting curses and threats on deaf ears. My eyes plead with him to stop, but he never once looks at me.

"You know, Mare, you could have avoided all this. You could have stayed by my side, the Red Queen, and we could have ruled together. All of Norta at our feet. Your family would have been safer. Your friends...I could have made exceptions for them. But you chose _him_ ," he spits. My shoulder grows number under his firm hold, but it's my leg I have to sit on that has me quivering. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

I say the words before I can stop myself. "And you're a shit kisser and a virgin."

My head jerks back when Maven yanks my braid, and I swear I get whiplash from it. "I think I'll keep you alive. I have a cage in the castle you would fit nicely in."

"Get the fuck off her!" The chains rattle and move with Cal's strength, but I'm confused when no flames fly off him. Is he tapped out, too tired? Ptolemus and Evangeline jump down into the trench, narrowly avoiding when Cal swings the ball attached to the chain just a hairsbreadth over their heads. The Samos siblings are unable to use their ability either, resorting to hand-to-hand combat. With two against one, it is hardly fair, but Cal holds his own impressively. I look around for anything we can use to our advantage, noticing flecks of white stone embedded in the dirt walls. Silent Stone. Holy shit, of course. Silent Stone would keep Silvers away naturally, and any Silver who dared jump in here would be up against an army of Reds on equal playing field. It's genius, those damn crafty Reds.

Maven is goading them all like it's a prize fight. He confirms his sick thoughts, telling me, "My money is on Evangeline, you see. She wanted that Queen's crown more than anyone. Maybe I'll give it to her…" He's baiting me, watching for a reaction that shows I give a shit. Unfortunately for him, I could not care less.

Cal manages to wipe out Ptolemus, cracking him in the head with the steel ball. Ptolemus hits the ground with a squelch and a thud right next to my knees. I see blood trickle from his ear, but can't tell if he's alive. This sends Evangeline into a wild panic, and she throws herself on top of Cal's shoulders, straddling he neck with her thighs. She crosses his arms in front of his chest by holding onto the chains attached to his wrists until he is essentially choking himself. She'll kill him. He can't buck her off of him, and his legs are trapped with the weighted steels attached to his feet. Maven giggles, actually _giggles_ with glee, but I can't manage to get out any sound. I'm afraid if I beg her to stop, she'll keep it up just to spite me. If I say nothing, am I complicit in watching his murder? I have to do something, but without my ability, there's nothing, _nothing_ , I can do. I feel Maven moving behind me, hear the sharp unsheathing of a sword ringing in my ears alongside the clicks. I may have stopped breathing altogether when I finally piece together what is about to happen.

In my head, I scramble to find the very edges of my ability. The faint sparks that I normally pull together to a cohesive lightning strike are faint and dulled by the presence of Silent Stone.

But this is what I've been working on. Every night for two weeks, many under Shade's tutelage, this is what we practiced. I've overcome it once before. I can do I again. I recall on Shade's instructions to me in the tunnels.

_"Silent Stone absorbs your ability. You need to pull it back. Grab hold of the edges of your power and pull it back with you, like a game of tug of war. Slowly pull it back until it is your own again."_

The first few times, as always, nothing happens. Silent Stone is too powerful, and trying to fight it has always been useless. By the fourth and fifth times, I manage to grasp the edges of my ability, the faint sparks, and begin pulling them back. There's an internal dialogue between the Silent Stone and me that no one else is privy to: _This is mine. This belongs to me. Give me my lightning back._ The Silent Stone responds by pulling harder against my progress. It's an exhausting duel, and one I have only ever won once in this lifetime.

When Shade insisted I start learning how to use Silent Stone and harness its own abilities, I rolled my eyes so much that I gave myself a headache that night. When I found out he wasn't screwing around, and he revealed in the future I'd even learned how to embed my own memories in the Stones, I still questioned why I needed to learn it now if I would know it later. Now, as I'm kneeling knee-dip in mud at Maven's feet while Cal has the life choked out of him by a blonde bitch, I finally get it. He knew all along it would come to this point.

I grasp at the vestiges of my ability and pull it back in me. The Silent Stone almost refuses to give it up, but with intense concentration and monumental effort, I take back what feels like too little, but I have no other choice but to expend it all and hope it does something. Using whatever electricity I could gather, I reach back to Maven's ankles and send bolts shooting up his legs and stay with it as it courses through his muscles. I'd love nothing more than to fry him, but there's Evangeline to contend with. I shoot bolts in her direction. They're strong and more powerful than I could have hoped for. Her body flies back 50 feet to land in a crumpled heap. My upper body strength is still pathetic, no matter how much of a badass I am right now, so Cal has to pull the chains off his leg himself.

Before Maven is back to full height, Call is pulling me out of the trench and hurrying me along. I lag, debating whether to finish Maven myself here and now. Shade said I would have to do this one day. I could end this today. We would walk out of here alive, into Archeon, with Cal as King and me as… Would I be Norta's Queen? According to my future, that's where I'm destined, but what if I don't want that? What if Cal doesn't want that just yet?

"Mare, let's go!"

Still, with Maven dead we would be infinitely better than we are now. Cal could reclaim his birthright and I could seek out the rest of the Newbloods from Julian's list. But then there's the other half of Shade's cryptic message. Leaving Cal. I guess I wouldn't have a choice if I killed his own brother right in front of him. He wouldn't want anything to do with me after that, so I definitely don't see him marrying me and sealing it with a kiss and a crown.

It's either my gut instinct or fear that keeps me from putting a bolt between Maven's eyes, but something about this moment doesn't feel right, no matter what Shade said.

When I turn back to look at Cal, whose hand is outstretched once again, I realize that going with him doesn't feel right, either. I doubt he even sees it, but my bottom lip trembles at the same time understanding passes through me. In my hand is a tiny stone, one from the bag Shade had given to me. It's one of the two memories I have yet to see, and as fate would have it, it is the one I needed most. It's also the shortest memory, because the simplicity of it speaks volumes.

_"Happy birthday, dear Tanner, happy birthday to you!"_

_The little boy with round cheeks and dark floppy hair that he begged my to spike up for his party, hovers overs a messy cake that he and Cal baked together this afternoon. This is usually the party where Tanner spits all over his cake trying to blow out the candles, but this year Cal and I devised a plan that included Cal manipulating the flames to disappear as soon as Tanner purses his lips. The candles are extinguished, and I put the electricity back into the lightbulbs. "Am I four now?" he squeals one excitement._

_Both Cal and I chuckle at his enthusiasm._

_"Yes, baby," I answer first. "You're FOUR!"_

_"See Nikolas, I'm a big kid now! I'm a big kid like you so you have to let me play in the fort now!"_

_Nikolas starts to object, but Farley pulls him by the arm back to her side to shush him. On Tanner's face is the biggest grin I've ever seen on him. He looks and feels unstoppable. He is a force to be reckoned with. He is sweet and loving, his eyes twinkle when he looks at me, he has made Cal and me better and stronger for sure._

_As I'm watching my family around me, missing only my older brother Shade, I wish I could find a way to capture the perfection of the moment. The awe and beauty of everyone around my boy who almost never came to be._

_A voice inside my head whispers to me, "When you doubt, trust this. Run, Mare. Run."_

The vision ends and I'm back to standing in the middle of the Choke with a battered Cal waiting on me. "I need to leave," I whisper to Cal. I clear my throat and find my voice again. This time, it's strong and steady. "You're not going to understand. Even I don't fully understand. But you need to let me go. I have to do this for us. You must let me do this, Cal.

Take care of Kilorn and Farley. Be kind to the Newbloods while they learn."

"Mare…what the hell are you talking about? Go where?"

"I can't tell you. But one day, one day I hope I will. I hope you'll be here to listen."

I throw a bolt of lightning at a struggling Maven, knocking him back and unconscious so I can do what I need to do next. My next two bolts are at Cal to kick up dirt and debris. They temporarily blind him and allow me to sprint past him toward the forest. Over and over I throw lightning at Cal to slow him down, at times it completely stops him in his tracks for several minutes, which buys me enough distance and time. From the trees comes Sara and Julian, who witness my attacks on Cal. They are both so utterly lost at what must look like my final descent into insanity. But it's Julian who runs past me to Cal, and Sara who runs toward me.

"Sara! Sara, let go! I have to go!" Tears stream down my cheeks while she holds me tightly, and though I keep pulling from her, she shouts something incoherent. This is the first time I've ever heard any noise out of Sara's mouth, and it stops me immediately in the chaos catapulting around us. It's almost too much to bear when her eyes fill to the brims with tears. Suddenly my leg feels stronger. My arm stops bleeding. The bones in my shoulder fuse back together. Next, the gashes all over my head and face slowly close. As I feel the skin coming together and all the pain leaving, I realize she isn't stopping me from doing what I need to do. _She is sending me off with love._

No matter how many times I've told Sara Skonos "thank you", the gratitude I have toward her is limitless. Just like the first time she held me at the base and blew me away with her care and compassion, my lungs and throat are burning when she wraps her arms around me.

And at last, Sara Skonos heals the lightning scars from neck to back that I have worn like a warrior these last few months. She's right; I don't need these any longer.

She lets go with a little nudge away from the burning battlefield behind us. "Go," she mouths. But my feet are planted and the fear of abandonment threatens to suffocate me. Suddenly I can't. Everyone I'll leave behind. Facing Maven on my own. Escaping with Shade, who does not know where any of this will take us, if it changes anything, if it leads to my death.

Sara makes another sound that sounds vaguely like my name. "Go, Mare!"

Without looking back at her, I take off at a breakneck run. The edge of the forest is fifty feet from me. Once I'm in, I'll see Shade, and he'll teleport me out of here. _Come on, come on_ , I will my legs faster.

"MARE!" Cal's scream from a distance to my right catches me, and I almost surrender to it. I falter momentarily, but I don't stop and I don't slow down. His voice booms over the chaos. "Where are you going?! Stop! Mare--

I shake my head vehemently, throwing off tears pouring from my blurry eyes.

"Mare!"

I clench my fist and demand lightning to crack around me. The ferocity of it blinds him and forces him back several feet, but he relentlessly tries to gain back the distance. Once more I strike; this time, I aim for his forward trajectory. Against my furious logic, I look back at him and see he's on the ground, alive and unharmed. No, that's not true. I can see that way he's looking at me, this is killing him. I'm leaving him, and he has no idea _why_ , why I must do this, why I hate myself for doing this. His eyes burn with such intense pain and confusion, so much I might vomit. Does he think I'm betraying him? Leaving him for dead? Another punch to the gut—he's crying—something I haven't seen on Cal since he stood over his father's body wielding his sword. When I turn to look ahead, the forest line is 20 feet or so ahead. Once I pass, this is it. Cal may never love me again. _I may never see him again_.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cal scrambling to get to his feet in another desperate attempt to reach me. _Stop. Please, Cal, please stop,_ but my silent begging is confined to my head and poses no real threat. It's sick that I want him to chase me, that I crave knowing he wants to save me from myself, even though he has no idea what he's saving me from. _Please let me do this for us._

Ten feet from the clearing and Cal is back on his feet and just barely over an arm's reach from me. Damn it, he's fast. He's going to get me before I can break through the forest to get to Shade.

"Shade!" I cry out. Before I can finish his name, Cal has reached me. I feel his fingertips brush my wrist when suddenly, time freezes. Cal stares wide-eyed and unbearably pained. Because of me. At the same time I pull my wrist from his touch, I lean in slowly to press my lips onto his.

"I love you," I whisper against his mouth. I see his eyelashes flutter so minutely I almost miss it. I repeat it again so I can commit to memory the wonder in his eyes instead of the fear behind it. "I love you."

I was wrong. I thought I was a shadow, just like Maven. I was a shadow of Shade's brilliance and Gisa's talent. I was a shadow of the Mareena Titanos, the lost and found Silver Princess. I was Maven's shadow that helped bring him to power. I never realized in all this time, Cal was the light against my dark. The bright flame behind me, everywhere I went. I was a silhouette. A girl from the Stilts with nothing spectacular about her except a terrible sin of stealing from others in need. I was an outline of what I was supposed to be, without distinct features and depth until he came around. He brought the light with him. And now that light would always a part of me.

Another hand firmly grasps my arm—I feel it for the first time since time froze—and I know what is about to come. Everything begins fading to black in slow motion as time and space squeeze around Shade and I. The panic rises in me quickly. Cal's hand slips from my grasp. My bottom lip trembles against his mouth, until the soft warmth of his lips leave mine. _Oh god, this is it. This is it. I'm so sorry, Cal. Please forgive me. Please remember me. Please still love me._

Somewhere in the millisecond before Shade and I are transported, I hear a man's voice in the darkness.

"Mom?"


	39. Epilogue

The cold bites my skin bitterly for the third night in a row. How we got here, I don't remember anymore. We've been so many places these last couple of weeks. It's impossible to keep track, though I'm sure Shade memorized it well. If he's making it up as he goes, which I'm inclined to think he isn't, but if there is any improvisation to our day-to-day, there's no telling. Every instruction he gives is a command, and I'm in no position but to obey. I am too withdrawn and tired, confused and broken, to fight the only person I have left.

Since there's no telling when or if they'll get back tonight, I conclude my evening with my bedtime ritual.

 _Brush my hair:_ Because I learned in the first week that neglecting this for even two days leads to knots that have to be cut out.

 _Brush teeth:_ No toothbrush and limited fresh water supply, so usually this involves chewing mint leaves for several minutes and scrubbing my teeth with the corner of a hopefully clean cloth.

 _Turn the lantern on:_ The fuel only lasts an hour in these small lanterns, but I'm usually asleep by then.

I watch the flame dance, remembering Cal teaching me to dance to our song. Like a mantra, I recall every good memory we shared so I don't forget. Shade has warned me one of the side effects of what we are doing is memory lapses. Just the other day, Shade called Kilorn his usual name of "that Warren kid", and it took me a few seconds to recall his first name. I cried about it privately for an hour, then decided to make lists of everything I knew right then and there. I keep adding to the list each day. For Cal, the memories stay in the forefront of my mind every night. They are what I go to sleep to; they are what I wake up to.

When my eyes grow heavy, I take a stone from my velvet bag I always keep on me. Tonight, is the cube-shaped stone. My favorite of the bunch.

_"Tanner, bed."_

_I watch him walk back down the hall from whence he came, dejected and definitely pouting. He drags his feet along the floor, passing by the two doors that separate his room from ours with such amazing lack of speed that I can't help but giggle quietly. Cal comes up behind me so stealthily that I almost jump out of my skin when I feel his arms around me. He kisses my neck before resting his chin on my shoulder._

_"Poor kid," he laments in a whisper against my ear. I love when he does that._

_Between my legs I'm tingling, a reminder of why I frantically sent Tanner back to his room to begin with._

_"The way I see it, Calore, you've got two choices: make love to your wife or get kicked in the face for the next 6 hours."_

_"I like your decision." He nips at my jaw, kissing and sucking along my neck and keeping his hands at a modest position on my hips. I push back against him, ready to go into full-on panting mode at how goddamn good he is at this. Just when I think I'm ready to jump on him, Tanner stops in front of his bedroom door and turns back to look at us. His eyes are full of tears, I can see his bottom lip trembling and his shoulders shaking. Just looking at the pitiful sight is enough to make me so utterly sad for him. My shoulders drop at the same time as Cal's hands. He knows the drill._

_"Later," he promises to me. There's a deep heaviness to his voice that stirs the subdued lust just enough to keep us both on edge._

_"Alright little man," Cal starts while he heads down the hall toward our son. "One book. Let's go pick."_

_I follow them into Tanner's room, knowing exactly which one he's going to grab. Settling onto Tanner's full-sized bed, I shake my head when he waves the biggest book of the bunch. "The pig and spider one!" Cal fruitlessly tried to get him to change his mind—'What about the caterpillar one? Or the fish one? How about the bear, you love the bear!'—but Tanner doesn't budge. That's why I never give him a reading choice at bedtime._

_"The pig and spider one!"_

_Cal and I switch off reading turns between big yawns. It's only recently that I started participating in our nighttime story routine; Cal is the stronger reader, naturally, so I used to be too intimidated to read the longer books in front of him. Tanner, however, insists that we read together, and I can see why. Cal has a beautifully rich and confident timbre, even pacing, and overall melodic sound when he reads. Tanner usually falls asleep during one of Cal's parts. I have more of an affect to the characters' voices, which Tanner finds exciting and engaging. I also love that he laughs when I read, though for midnight stories like this time, it can be too distracting for him._

_At some point, Tanner and I both fall asleep because the next thing I know, Cal is gently easing me off the bed up into his arms._

_"Mmm, what time is it?" I ask when he makes to the hallway._

_"Just after 1," he whispers back. "I don't think we're ever going to finish that book in its entirety."_

_I think I chuckle, but I'm so tired that I have no idea what is filtering from brain to mouth. Just when I start to doze off again, Cal places me in our bed and I remember what we promised to finish what we started before Tanner woke up from his bad dream. Guilt washes over me; almost every night for the last week, I've been too tired to do anything more than a peck on the lips before rolling over for much-needed sleep. We've been able to sneak daytime quickies in—if we manage to wake a few minutes ahead of Tanner in the mornings or during Tanner's nap time between Cal's High Houses meetings and my Guard meetings. Hell, even at one of our State dinners a few nights ago, Cal worked his hand under my dress and I returned the favor during House Welle's particularly long drone of a "thank you" speech._

_As fun as that all has been, we're still missing that crucial connection of uninterrupted time together. I was hoping to do that tonight as I was feeling good for once, but of course the best laid plans…_

_When Cal scoots in behind me, pulling my back to his chest as usual, I try to turn in his arms to apologize. He won't have it; instead shushing me and telling me to get some sleep, and we'll try again tomorrow._

_"I don't know why I've been so tired and poorly this week," I explain. "I've not been any busier than usual; the Guard stuff hasn't been really crazy, and no new reports on the…current mission." He knows what I mean, but we both refuse to talk about it in detail outside of the meeting rooms and roundtables discussions._

_"Maybe you're pregnant," he chuckles. The way he says it, I don't think he really means it at all._

_I tense and stop breathing for a solid 20 seconds, but Cal doesn't notice. He's fallen asleep, a fact punctuated by his light snoring. Could he be right? Why didn't I think of it before? I felt similar during my pregnancy with Tanner, but then I could feel him inside me before anything was ever confirmed. I knew something felt inexplicably different, but I don't know if it's the same feeling I have now. Or maybe it is, and I just haven't recognized it. Or maybe it's too early?_

_My heart thumps nervously in my chest. If I am pregnant, the timing isn't exactly the best. Then again, Tanner's timing wasn't great either, but we're so close on mobilizing the final phase of the Guard's mission and there are reported uprisings across the Norta, the Lakelands and even Piedmont that we think could be related. Still, another baby! What would that even be like? Would Tanner take on well to a brother or sister? Could I handle two children? I tell myself first thing Wednesday morning, I'll go see Sara. It's only four days away; I can wait until then. She and Julian are away at a scholars' event, and she's the only one I trust for accuracy and secrecy. Until then, I'm not going to worry or set any expectations._

On the damp wooden floor of the abandoned shed I'm hiding out in tonight, I place the cube stone carefully into its velvet pouch with the others. I never do find out the answer to my future-self's dilemma. I learned not to bother asking about the memories either. They won't tell me details of future, and it seems to make them sad and moody anyway.

As the finale of my nighttime ritual, I turn on my most prized possession—the only thing I make sure to carry with me along with the stones. It's a little bulky for our travels, and Shade was rather annoyed when it was given to me because of its size and delicate nature, but once I opened it I knew there was no way I could let it go.

I open the lid of the small box and twist the key located underneath. I wait for the several tiny clicks that occur as the motor starts up, then I fall asleep to the tinkling sound of the music box playing our song.


End file.
